Aryna Sabalenka raced into a fourth consecutive Wuhan Open quarterfinal Thursday, having revealed she spent time on holiday last month practicing with Novak Djokovic.
‘We went for dinner. We practiced a couple times,’ Sabalenka told reporters.
She was joined by Iga Swiatek, who reached her 25th WTA 1000 quarterfinal with a hard-fought 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 win over Belinda Bencic, and Coco Gauff, who ended the inspired run of Chinese wildcard Zhang Shuai 6-3, 6-2.
Sabalenka, in contrast to her rusty start against Rebecca Sramkova the day before, came out firing from the get-go to blow away Russia’s world No. 20 Liudmila Samsonova 6-3, 6-2.
Meanwhile, Djokovic said he was ‘concerned’ about his physical state, but still dispatched Belgium’s Zizou Bergs 6-3, 7-5 to set up a Shanghai Masters semifinal against tournament surprise package Valentin Vacherot.