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The Straits Times
|October 10, 2025
Holiday session with Djokovic sets her up for Wuhan where she is still unbeaten
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World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka raced into a fourth consecutive Wuhan Open quarterfinal on Oct 9, having revealed she spent time on holiday in September practising with Novak Djokovic.
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 at the WTA 1000 tournament.
The match was played under a closed centre-court roof on another hot day in China, where the start of play on outside courts was delayed to 2.30pm from Iam.
Sabalenka, whose unbeaten match run in Wuhan extended to 19-0 as she seeks a fourth straight title in the Chinese city, took a month off after winning her fourth Grand Slam title at the US Open in early September.
She went on holiday to Greece, where she spent time hitting with former world No. 1 and 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic, who is a resident there and is currently in action at the Shanghai Masters.
“I won a lot of points against him for the record,’ Sabalenka told reporters.
“I hope he’s going to confirm that. We went for dinner. We practised a couple times.
This story is from the October 10, 2025 edition of The Straits Times.
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