Second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka maintained her undefeated record at the Wuhan Open, opening her campaign with a 6-4, 6-4 win over 37th-ranked Katerina Siniakova in a second-round match on Wednesday.
Two-time defending champion Sabalenka, who received a bye in the first round with the other top eight seeds, broke her Czech opponent twice in each set — as well as surrendering one of her own service games — as she clinched her latest win in 1 hour and 34 minutes of play.
In the third round, the 26-year-old Belarussian will play Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, who ended Paris Olympics silver medalist Donna Vekic’s tournament with 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory.
The reigning U.S. Open champion is now up to 13-0 in Wuhan after winning the title on her first appearance in 2018 and defending her crown in 2019 before the tournament took its five-year hiatus from the calendar due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and a WTA boycott of China.
“I missed Wuhan a lot,” Sabalenka said. “I just have really good memories of winning, two times, the title here. Just Wuhan brings me a lot of great memories, good vibes.”
Sabalenka needs only to make the quarterfinals at Wuhan to regain top spot in the rankings from Iga Swiatek, who withdrew from the women’s Asian swing citing fatigue and personal reasons. Swiatek recently split with coach Tomasz Wiktorowski.
There were six Americans in second round matches on Wednesday.
China Open champion Coco Gauff routed Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova 6-1, 6-2 in 75 minutes, while Hailey Baptiste upset 10th-ranked Barbora Krejcikova 6-3, 7-5 for her first win over a Top-10 player.
Magdalena Frech beat eighth-ranked Emma Navarro 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in just over two hours, and No. 11-ranked Daria Kasatkina overcame a mid-match stumble to defeat American Bernarda Pera 6-4, 1-6, 6-1.
Amanda Anisimova withdrew from her match against 17th-ranked Marta Kostyuk.
Later Wednesday, third-ranked Jessica Pegula plays Anastasia Potapova and the Andreeva sisters — Mirra and Erika — face each other for the first time at a tour-level tournament.
