Wuhan Open: Sabalenka begins title defence on winning note

WUHAN: Aryna Sabalenka admits that the pressure of heightened expectations led to her sub-par results this season, and she regrets blaming her dip in form on her coach Dmitry Tursunov, whom she briefly parted ways with earlier this month.

Sabalenka, who started her Wuhan Open title defence with an impressive 6-1, 6-2 win over her fellow Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Sunday, says a week alone without her team at a tournament in Zhengzhou after the US Open, helped her gain perspective and led her to reunite with Tursunov.

The big-hitting 21-year-old rocketed up the rankings last year, from 73 in the world at the start of 2018, to inside the top ten 12 months later, thanks to title runs in New Haven, Wuhan and Shenzhen. But her progress, in singles, stalled a few weeks into the 2019 season, despite the success she was having alongside her doubles partner Elise Mertens, with whom she lifted the US Open trophy two weeks ago.