Aryna Sabalenka added her fourth trophy of the 2024 season by beating Qinwen Zheng in the 2024 Wuhan Open final.
The two best players at the WTA 1000 tournament in Wuhan deservedly reached the final and competed for the trophy. Sabalenka outplayed Coco Gauff in the semi-final of the event, while Zheng eliminated fellow compatriot Xinyu Wang to reach the final.
It was clear who the home crowd would support even before the match. A Chinese player has never won the tournament in Wuhan or even played in the final, but rising superstar Zheng did that.
But beating Sabalenka is something she has never managed to do before. The Belarusian player has also completely dominated their matches before, so even the home crowd advantage didn't have to play any role in this match.
Sabalenka was also unbeaten at the event before this match, having won the tournament in both 2018 and 2019. In this match, she certainly wanted to keep her dominance in Wuhan, and she did that in the first set of the match.
In every single one of her service games, Sabalenka lost only one point, keeping her opponent far from any break point chances. On the return, she could create two break point chances in the sixth game, and even though the first one remained unused, the top seed used the second one to lead 4-2.
Both players then controlled their serve for the remainder of the set, which obviously favored the World No. 2 player, as she was able to win it 6-3, continuing her dominance against the Chinese player by winning her seventh consecutive set against her.
When Sabalenka led with a one-break advantage also in the second set, it seemed that this match would mirror all of their previous matches, which she won without any issues in two sets, but that wasn't the case.
Zheng refused to give up, she broke back and even added one more break of serve to serve for the second set at 5-3. However, she couldn't serve out the second set to send the match into the decider.
Sabalenka broke back and made it 5-5, after which the Chinese player held her serve to lead 6-5, forcing her opponent to serve to stay in the set. She couldn't, and Zheng broke again. This time, she didn't have to serve out the set, as she won it after breaking the Belarusian's serve, 7-5.
The third set provided a really dramatic finish to this match. First, Sabalenka broke her opponent's serve twice to lead 3-0, but Zheng pulled one of the breaks back to decrease her deficit to 1-3.
The Chinese player then also saved one break point in her next service game to make it 2-3, and on Sabalenka's next serve, Zheng got herself to another break point to make it 3-3.
Unfortunately for her and the crowd in Wuhan, she couldn't do that, and from that moment, Sabalenka ran away with the match. She was able to control the remainder of it, winning 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 to win the 2024 Wuhan Open while remaining undefeated in the city.
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