World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka yesterday said her performances in “key moments” were crucial to surviving a major scare in the China Open second round, after she defeated unseeded Katie Boulter 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) in Beijing.
Sabalenka saved seven break points at 5-5 and then forced the stubborn Briton, ranked 56th in the world, into a rare backhand error to clinch the opening set.
The Belarusian notched another must-win break in the second set to again draw level at 5-5 before triumphing in a tie-break by slamming down an unreturned serve.
Photo: Reuters
She is to battle Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in the next round for a place in the quarter-finals.
“I think what made the difference was that in the key moments I played a little bit better than her,” Sabalenka said at a post-match news conference.
“I think it was all about those last games in each set. She had the opportunity and I’m super glad that I didn’t give her those sets easily,” she added. “I kept fighting, kept trying, and that’s what made the difference.”
World No. 4 Jessica Pegula bounced back from a set down to beat Russia’s Anna Blinkova 6-7 (2/7), 6-2, 6-1.
France’s world No. 10 Caroline Garcia suffered a second-set wobble before downing Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Giuliana Olmos of Mexico beat Storm Hunter of Australia and Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-1, 6-2 to advance to the quarter-finals.
On Monday, Chan’s sister, Latisha Chan, and Yana Sizikova of Russia crashed out in the opening round with a 6-2, 4-6, 10-4 loss to Brazilians Ingrid Martins and Luisa Stefani.
The Chan sisters on Sunday won the women’s doubles gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
The China Open is taking place for the first time since 2019 after Beijing ditched its strict “zero” COVID-19 policy.
Additional reporting by staff writer
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS