​Katie Boulter gave Aryna Sabalenko a lot of trouble, but the world number one won after two very controversial sets with a score of 7-5, 7-6(2) and reached the 1/8 finals of the “WTA 1000” tournament. from Beijing

Aryna Sabalenko, two balanced sets with British Katie Boulter

Boulter, ranked 56 in the WTA rankings, led 5-3 in the first set, but Sabalenko fought back, saved eight break points at 5-5 and closed out the match with a strong comeback in the next game.

Katy won the second set with a score of 5-4, but succumbed to the pressure and could not trouble the Belarusian athlete in the tie-break (7-2 for Aryna).

Sabalenka, the main favorite of the competition in China, will face the Italian Jasmine Paolini (36 WTA) for a place in the quarters.

WTA Beijing, Tuesday matches

Aryna Sabalenko (1) – Katie Boulter 7-5, 7-6(2)

Jessica Pegula (4) – Anna Blinkova (2) 6-7, 6-2, 6-1

Caroline Garcia (9) – Yulia Putintseva 6-3, 3-6, 6-3

Darya Kasatkina (11) – Xinyu Wang

Ons Zhaber (7) – Marta Kostyuk

Coco Gauff (3) – Petra Martych

Iga Svyatek (2) – Varvara Grachova

Mirra Andreeva – Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Olena Rybakina (5) – Tatyana Maria

Maria Sakkari (6) – Linda Fruhvirtova.

The China Open is held in Beijing from September 30 to October 8 on hard, is part of the WTA 1000 category and has a total prize pool of $8,127,389.

The competition was last held in 2019 (it was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic), and then Naomi Osaka became the champion.