After beating Putintseva 2-1 yesterday, Sabalenka's instant world ranking also overtook Swiatek and moved up to No. 1, which is also her dream, and now she has done it. Sabalenka lost to Mukhova in last week's China Open match and faced a weaker Fletcher, who was also considered a strong contender to advance to the semi-finals.
Fletcher's match with Maya last night ended at 11 o'clock in the evening, so Sabalenka also has an advantage in terms of physical fitness, and in terms of strength, Sabalenka's advantage is also very large.
After the start of the first set, Sabalenka showed good form, in the first game, Sabalenka scored 4 points in a row, broke Fletcher's serve, and then his own serve, although it also allowed Fletcher to get 2 break points, fortunately, Sabalenka's serve was strong, and it was difficult to complete the hold.
Then in the third game, Sabalenka also made persistent efforts, and after falling behind 0-30, she completed the break with four consecutive points and opened the score again. Sabalenka held serve, and the score has come to 4-0!
In the fifth game, Fletcher finally completed his first hold, but in Sabalenka's service game, Fletcher did not have many chances, and the two players also held serve in the next two games, and finally Sabalenka won the first set 6-2.
In the second set, the competition between the two sides was more intense, Fletcher's first service game, 2 game points, were tied by Sabalenka, and then Sabalenka finally broke on the second break point, and then his own serve was successfully held, and the opening game was 2-0!
In the 3rd game, it became the most competitive game between the two, Fletcher got game points again and again, but Sabalenka chased the score back, Fletcher wasted 5 game points successively, and was finally broken by Sabalenka, and the score came to 3-0! But then Fletcher broke back and chased the score to 1-3!
After that, Fletcher successfully held serve and chased the score to 2-3, and in the sixth game, Sabalenka faced two break points and scored four points in a row to successfully hold serve and pull the score to 4-2! And in the 7th game, Sabalenka's form came up, breaking the opponent's serve, and it was already 5-2 ahead.
In the 8th game, Sabalenka's serve won the match, she took the lead to get 2 match points, and finally held serve, won another set 6-2, swept the opponent 2-0, and advanced to the semifinals of the Wuhan Open, gained 390 points, and continued to hold the first position!
In this game, Sabalenka won very easily on the whole, although Saba's first-serve scoring rate was not very high, but in terms of second-serve scoring rate, Sabalenka was far ahead of her opponent, which was also the key to her victory.
Sabalenka will face Gauff in the semi-finals against the new champion of the China Open, who has won nine consecutive matches in the middle and Wuhan nets this season, and this semi-final matchup will be very exciting and good-looking.
For Zheng Qinwen, seeing these two champions talking directly, she can also sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, of course, it is difficult to defeat any of them, and Zheng Qinwen's excellent performance is required, of course, the premise is to defeat Paulini first tonight!