Ann Li had Aryna Sabalenka at 5-2 in the third set on Wednesday night in Wuhan and still needed 10 match points to finish it. The American converted the last of them with a forehand winner in a deciding tiebreak and beat the top seed 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(5) in 2 hours 27 minutes.
Sabalenka saved five match points in one service game to hold for 3-5, broke back, and saved two more on her own serve at 4-5 with a forehand winner and a backhand winner to level at 5-5. Li held to love two games later to reach the tiebreak, where Sabalenka saved two more, one with a forehand that caught the corner, before Li closed it out. Sabalenka had treatment on her taped right knee during the match.
“I think on some of those match points I was about to lose my mind. I was about to crash out,” Li said in her post-match press conference. It was her first win over Sabalenka in four meetings and her third win over a top-10 player. Sabalenka, a three-time Wuhan champion, will miss the semifinals there for the first time. It was her second straight loss after her third-round exit in Beijing to Nikola Bartunkova.
The other top seed. No. 2 seed Jessica Pegula lost 2-6, 7-6(7), 6-3 to Jelena Ostapenko on the same day after failing to convert three match points. Ostapenko saved match points three times in the second set. Pegula was playing her first tournament in more than a month after missing Singapore and Beijing.
Thursday. Two more seeds went out in the round of 16. No. 6 seed Karolina Muchova, the Wimbledon finalist, lost 7-5, 6-3 to No. 11 seed Diana Shnaider. It was Shnaider’s fourth career win over a top-10 opponent. No. 16 seed Maja Chwalinska, the Roland Garros finalist, beat No. 10 seed Iva Jovic 6-4, 6-1, the biggest win of her career by ranking. She took the first set with a break in the ninth game.
Iga Swiatek, the No. 7 seed, beat lucky loser Ashlyn Krueger 6-1, 6-4. Krueger pressed in the second set but made 44 unforced errors to Swiatek’s 27. It was Swiatek’s 150th match win at WTA 1000 level. “I’m happy to be in the quarters for sure,” she said. No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina broke Chinese wild card Guo Hanyu in the first and last games of a 6-1, 6-4 win. Guo, ranked No. 240, had beaten Sorana Cirstea in the first round.
Britain’s Sonay Kartal, ranked No. 170, beat Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-0 in 63 minutes. She had beaten No. 9 seed Belinda Bencic 6-0, 7-5 in the second round. Ostapenko and Maria Sakkari also reached the quarterfinals. Li was due to play Indonesia’s Janice Tjen later on today.
The quarterfinals. Swiatek plays Li or Tjen. Svitolina plays Kartal. Shnaider plays Ostapenko. Chwalinska plays Sakkari. Svitolina and Swiatek are the only top-10 seeds left. The final is on Sunday, October 18. The Wuhan Open Guide covers the venue, format and past champions, and GTN’s earlier report explains how five lucky losers, Krueger among them, got into the draw.
What it means. Wuhan is the last WTA 1000 of the season, and Muchova’s loss leaves room for Swiatek in the Race to the WTA Finals, which are played at Indian Wells from November 8 to 15. Swiatek has qualified every year since 2021 but was 10th in the Race on Thursday, with the top eight qualifying. Winning the title would put pressure on Muchova. WTA Finals Qualification Explained sets out how the Race works and when it closes.
