Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff have made winning starts at the WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan.
The Belarusian, seeded at No. 1 in the absence of Iga Swiatek, saw off Katerina Siniakova 6-4 6-4 to set up a third-round meeting against Yulia Putintseva.
On the other side, the fourth-seeded American annihilated Viktoriya Tomova 6-1 6-2.
For Sabalenka, this was her 13th win in Wuhan. And considering that she won back-to-back titles at the tournament in her first two appearances in 2018 and 2019, she remains undefeated at the Chinese event.
By doing so, the 26-year-old became the first player since Maria Sharapova to win her 13 opening matches at a WTA tournament – the Russian tennis legend accomplished it in Stuttgart between 2012 and 2014.
“Happy to be back in Wuhan. Siniakova, who is fighting for every point, it’s really good that I was able to finish this match in two sets… I missed Wuhan a lo. I just have really good memories of winning, two times, the title here. Just Wuhan brings me a lot of great memories, good vibes,” the Belarusian reflected.
How Sabalenka, Gauff won their matches?
In the first set, the top seed blew her opening break – but remained calm – and still won the opening set after breaking Siniakova in the 10th game when the Czech was serving to stay in the opener.
The second set was basically a replay of the first set as Sabalenka didn’t manage to hold to her first break but then broke the world No. 37 when she was serving to stay in the match.
When it comes to the Gauff and Tomova match, the 20-year-old – who won the WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing on Sunday – dropped her serve in the very first game of the match.
But then, she impressively claimed five breaks in a row and won the next 10 games to open a 6-1 4-0 lead before serving out for a two-set win in the eighth game and setting up a clash versus 13th-seeded Marta Kostyuk.