The first two seeds of the WTA 1000 in Wuhan, Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula, lost on Wednesday as soon as they entered the competition on the hard courts of the Chinese metropolis.
The 28-year-old Belarusian lost 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) in the second round against the American Ann Li (31st), who needed no less than ten match points to claim her first victory in four duels against Sabalenka.
The world No.2, who wore a bandage on her right knee on Wednesday, led 4-2 in the second set before losing four games in a row and the second set.
In the deciding set, Li broke Sabalenka at 2-1 in her favor but returned her break ahead as she served for the match at 5-3.
In the tie-break, the American led 6/3, failed to convert her eighth and ninth match points before finally managing to snatch victory after 2h27 of fighting.
Triple winner of the WTA 1000 in Wuhan, Sabalenka had already recorded an early elimination at the recent tournament in Beijing, where she disappeared in the third round.
World No.4 Jessica Pegula also lost in the second round on Wednesday, dominated 2-6, 7-6 (9/7), 6-3 by Latvian Jelena Ostapenko (34th) after missing three match points.
Exempted from the first round thanks to her top seed status, the American played her first match since her defeat against Sabalenka in the semi-finals of the US Open at the beginning of September.
Despite Pegula’s defeat, the WTA formalized on Wednesday her qualification for the end-of-season Masters in Indian Wells (November 8-15), like that of her compatriot Coco Gauff (5th).
Of the eight tickets for the Masters, only two remain to be filled since Elena Rybakina (1st), Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva (3rd) and Linda Noskova (8th) had already secured their qualification earlier in the season.
Among the four main contenders for the last two seeds for Indian Wells, Elina Svitolina (6th), Karolina Muchova (7th) and Iga Swiatek (9th) all three qualified on Wednesday for the round of 16 in Wuhan. Marta Kostyuk (10th), however, lost on Tuesday in the second round.
