{"id":22512,"date":"2025-10-08T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=22512"},"modified":"2025-10-08T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T12:04:07","slug":"sabalenka-battles-to-keep-wuhan-record-alive-pegula-survives-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=22512","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka battles to keep Wuhan record alive, Pegula survives marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"
Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka battled hard Wednesday to keep her unbeaten record in Wuhan intact, having to come from behind to beat Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.<\/p>\n

The world number one started slowly in her first match since she clinched a fourth Grand Slam title at the US Open last month.<\/p>\n

But the Belarusian found her power game in the final set to reach the Wuhan Open last 16, where she will face the 16th-seeded Russian Liudmila Samsonova.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka is chasing a fourth consecutive crown in Wuhan where she has a perfect 18-0 win-loss record.<\/p>\n

The first three games went against serve but it was Sramkova who consolidated for 3-1, and it was all she needed to grab the opening set in 35 minutes, firing 15 winners.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka hit back to level and swept through the decider to win in just under two hours.<\/p>\n

“She played incredible tennis, especially in the first set. There wasn’t much I could do against her,” said Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

“I knew after that little break, it will be not that easy to get back in my rhythm.<\/p>\n

“But I’m really glad that in the second set I found my game, I stepped in, and I think I played really great.”<\/p>\n

Gauff cruise<\/p>\n

Third seed Coco Gauff, a semi-finalist in Wuhan last year, booked her place in the last 16 with a smooth 6-1, 6-0 performance against Japanese qualifier Moyuka Uchijima.<\/p>\n

Gauff was flawless throughout a 51-minute victory that was her 18th on Chinese soil since 2023, the most at WTA level by any player in China during that period.<\/p>\n

Gauff will square off with Chinese wildcard Zhang Shuai for a place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

In contrast, world number six Jessica Pegula survived a “wild ride”, needing seven match points and almost three hours to overcome fellow American Hailey Baptiste 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (8\/6).<\/p>\n

Pegula served for the win twice, at 5-2 and 5-4 in the third set, but Baptiste dug deep to save five match points and took four games in a row for a 6-5 advantage.<\/p>\n

Pegula steadied the ship to force a tiebreak and she finally wrapped up the victory on her seventh match point.<\/p>\n

“It’s been brutal,” said Pegula, who will face Russian ninth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the third round.<\/p>\n

“Match points, then she started playing well, I think I just got a little tentative,” admitted Pegula.<\/p>\n

“And that’s all it takes sometimes for someone to come back.<\/p>\n

“I’m really proud of myself for how I held it together because I think I easily could have just collapsed. But I held tough, so yeah, that was a wild ride.”<\/p>\n

Heat again played a factor as 12th-seeded Karolina Muchova joined the likes of Emma Raducanu, Jelena Ostapenko and Dayana Yastremska on the list of mid-match retirees in Wuhan.<\/p>\n

With temperatures soaring above 30C, Muchova struggled with the heat and had her vitals checked on court before she retired while trailing Magdalena Frech 7-6 (7\/1), 4-1.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka battled hard Wednesday to keep her unbeaten record in Wuhan intact, having to come from behind to beat Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. The world number one started slowly in her first match since she clinched a fourth Grand Slam title at the US Open last month. But the Belarusian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}