For a set and a half on Thursday in Wuhan it looked like it might not be Aryna Sabalenka’s day. The Belarusian was outplayed in the opening set, losing it 6-1, and her feisty opponent Yulia Putintseva was angling for what might have been a critical break of serve in the second set, leading 6-1, 4-3.

The Sabalenka turned up the power, shut the door and raced to yet another emphatic victory in Wuhan.

The two-time champion reeled off the final nine games to claim a 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 victory and a spot in the quarterfinals. Making her first appearance since finishing off back-to-back title runs in Wuhan, Sabalenka ripped 44 winners against 13 for Putintseva to book a quarterfinal with Poland’s Magdalena Frech and stretch her Wuhan win streak to 14. 



“That was a really difficult battle,” Sabalenka said. “Yulia always put it into a great fight. I had to work really hard to get this win. In the first set, it seemed like whatever she would do would play well for her. I was struggling with [my] strings. I was all over the place.

“I'm really glad that I was able to put myself together in the second set and things clicked. Yeah, I was able to get this win.”

Sabalenka improved to 51-12 on the season and inched closer to the No.1 ranking. If she can win the title in Wuhan, she would be within 100 points of top-ranked Iga Swiatek for the top spot.

The World No.2 is currently 35-7 on hard courts in 2024, and 11-8 in three-set matches.

Sabalenka has now won 17 of her last 18 matches, with her only loss coming to Karolina Muchova last week at Beijing.

In the pair’s first meeting since the 2019 US Open, slow-starting Sabalenka dropped the opening set in 29 minutes, thanks to 14 unforced errors from the World No.2.

The three-time Slam champion gradually dialed her game into focus in the second, before running away with things in the final set and a half to improve to 2-0 lifetime against Putintseva.

Sabalenka saved a break point while serving at 3-4 in the second set and never looked back.

“After that game I felt like something clicked,” she said. “The return was better. The movement was better. The decisions I was making on court was much better. I felt like that was really turning point in the match."



Quarterfinals Set With Four Top-5 Seeds and Four Unseeded

Elsewhere in Wuhan, Beijing champion Coco Gauff moved into the last eight with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Marta Kostyuk, while China’s Wang Xinyu reached her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal with a 6-3, 7-5 upset of second-seeded Jessica Pegula.

Fourth-seeded Gauff will face Poland’s Magda Linette, who topped Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-3. Wang will take on unseeded Ekaterina Alexandrova after the Russian topped American qualifier Hailey Baptiste 6-1, 6-1.

Hometown favorite Zheng Qinwen, the No.5 seed, defeated Leylah Fernandez 5-7, 6-3, 6-0, to set a quarterfinal with third-seeded Jasmine Paolini, who topped Erika Andreeva 6-3, 6-2.