Sabalenka falls in her debut in Wuhan and raises alarms with her knee
Aryna Sabalenka has suffered another tough defeat in a season to forget. The Belarusian tennis player lost in her debut at the WTA Wuhan against Ann Li with a score of 3-6 6-4 7-6, and to make matters worse, she raised concerns after needing treatment from the physio for her right knee. With the WTA 1000 season now concluded, the question remains whether she will be able to compete in the WTA Finals that will take place from November 7 to 14 in Indian Wells.
After losing the number 1 ranking at the US Open and the final to Elena Rybakina, Sabalenka acknowledged that she arrived recharged for the Asian tour due to having not played many matches because of her poor results. However, her performance has not been as expected. In WTA Beijing, she lost in the second round to Nikola Bartunkova in two sets, and in Wuhan, the situation has worsened as she fell in her debut and showed serious physical problems.
Sabalenka is in serious danger of losing the number 2 ranking
Aryna entered the match with a brace on her right knee, although everything seemed to be progressing normally. In fact, the Belarusian player won the first set 6-3 and it appeared that it would be a smooth debut. However, little by little Li got back into the match to the point of coming back against Sabalenka, who called for the physio while losing 4-1 in the third set and received attention for her injured knee. Even so, she made a brief attempt to come back and took the match to a tiebreak, but it was of little use.
The absence of Rybakina in the tournament allows her to maintain a distance of less than 2,000 points from the Kazakh in the battle for number 1, but other players like Mirra Andreeva and Jessica Pegula are just over 1,000 points behind her and are in better form. Therefore, Aryna will need to step up if she doesn't want to face a scare, although considering the condition of her knee, the short-term outlook is not hopeful.
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Sabalenka cae en su debut en Wuhan y enciende las alarmas con su rodilla