No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus needed just 70 minutes to crush No. 8 Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-1 in her opening match at the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday.
She capitalized on 11 aces and five service breaks.
Sabalenka already clinched the No. 1 year-end ranking and now is playing to win her first WTA Finals title. The victory came in her 500th career match, and she now is 60-11 on the season with four titles.
“That feels super special,” she said of the No. 1 ranking. “I’m super happy and proud of the work that’s been done and that I’m getting better and better every day. I hope we’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing. Hopefully we can stay there.”
The win gives Sabalenka a leg up in the Stefanie Graf group, which also features No. 3 Coco Gauff and No. 5 Jessica Pegula.
Pegula outlasted Gauff, 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-2 in two hours, 12 minutes to wrap up the opening set of matches.
Serving continued to be the curse for Gauff, the defending champion. Despite eight aces, she committed 17 double faults and was broken nine times. The stat sheet showed 25 winners for Gauff against 75 unforced errors.
On Saturday, No. 2 Iga Swiatek of Poland defeated No. 7 Madison Keys in the Serena Williams Group, and No. 6 Elena Ryabakina of Kazakhstan topped No. 4 Amanda Anisimova.
Hong Kong Tennis Open
Canada’s Victoria Mboko rebounded from a tough second set to defeat Cristina Bucsa 7-5, 6-7 (9), 6-2 for her second career victory.
The No. 3 seed, Mboko jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the middle set before the Spaniard rattled off three consecutive game wins to draw even. The set went to a tiebreaker, and Mboko spoiled three set points for Bucsa, who fended off a match point before winning on the fourth set point.
Mboko took a 2-0 lead in the deciding set, breaking Bucsa’s serve in the first game before surviving the second game, which went to eight deuces. In all, Mboko, 19, converted six break points and drilled nine aces on the day.
The match lasted two hours and 49 minutes, which was the longest WTA Tour final of the season.
Jiangxi Open
Russian Anna Blinkova impressed both during and after the match as she defeated 17-year-old wild card Lilli Tagger of Austria 6-3, 6-3.
Blinkova captured 79 of the 139 total points, thanks to her work on serves. She won 64 percent of the points (39 of 61) on her own serve and 51% of points (40 of 78) on Tagger’s serve, even with the Austrian hitting six aces.
It was the second career title for Blinkova, who won the Transylvania Open in 2022.
Chennai Open
Fourth-seeded Janice Tjen of Indonesia topped No. 7 seed Kimberly Birrell of Australia 6-4, 6-3 to capture her maiden WTA Tour title in Chennai, India.
Tjen notched five aces, saved 12 of 14 break points and converted 5 of 6 break opportunities in the two-hour match.
The singles title was her first of two in Chennai. Later in the day, she and fellow Indonesian Aldila Sutjiadi teamed to win the doubles championship. The second-seeded team defeated top seeds Monica Niculescu of Romania and Storm Hunter of Australia 7-5, 6-4.
–Field Level Media
