WUHAN: US Open champion Aryna Sabalenka's winning streak at the Wuhan Open rolled on to 19 matches when she beat Liudmila Samsonova 6-3, 6-2 Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000-level tournament.
Top-ranked Sabalenka's streak includes winning titles at Wuhan in 2018, 2019 and 2024.
Earlier, Jessica Pegula recovered from an early service break in the third set to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 and also advance to the final eight.
Sixth-seeded Pegula, who lost in the China Open semifinals last week, leveled the deciding set at 2-2, then won four of the last five games for victory.
The win over No 9 Alexandrova came a day after Pegula needed seven match points to beat fellow American Hailey Baptiste in the second round.
Sixth straight three-set match
It was Pegula's sixth straight three-set match, and for the fifth time, she won.
“I can’t remember the last time I played two sets,” Pegula said. “But I’ve been competing really hard and I’ve been playing a lot of really good players.
It was different conditions today with the roof closed and I think it took us a little while to get adjusted.”
In night matches, No 2 Iga Swiatek was scheduled to play Belinda Bencic and No 3 Coco Gauff, coming off a semifinal loss to eventual champion Amanda Anisimova at the China Open last week, was due to face Zhang Shuai.
