{"id":483327,"date":"2025-10-08T15:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483327\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T15:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:58:11","slug":"germanys-woltemade-not-yet-in-team-training-after-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/483327\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Woltemade not yet in team training after flu"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\tWUHAN, China: Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka battled hard Wednesday to keep her unbeaten record in Wuhan intact, having to come from behind to beat Slovakia\u2019s Rebecca Sramkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

\n\tThe world number one started slowly in her first match since she clinched a fourth Grand Slam title at the US Open last month.

\n\tBut the Belarusian found her power game in the final set to reach the Wuhan Open last 16, where she will face the 16th-seeded Russian Liudmila Samsonova.

\n\tSabalenka is chasing a fourth consecutive crown in Wuhan where she has a perfect 18-0 win-loss record.

\n\tThe first three games went against serve but it was Sramkova who consolidated for 3-1, and it was all she needed to grab the opening set in 35 minutes, firing 15 winners.

\n\tSabalenka hit back to level and swept through the decider to win in just under two hours.

\n\t\u201cShe played incredible tennis, especially in the first set. There wasn\u2019t much I could do against her,\u201d said Sabalenka.

\n\t\u201cI knew after that little break, it will be not that easy to get back in my rhythm.

\n\t\u201cBut I\u2019m really glad that in the second set I found my game, I stepped in, and I think I played really great.\u201d

\n\tGauff cruise<\/strong>

\n\tThird seed Coco Gauff, a semifinalist in Wuhan last year, booked her place in the last 16 with a smooth 6-1, 6-0 performance against Japanese qualifier Moyuka Uchijima.

\n\tGauff was flawless throughout a 51-minute victory that was her 18th on Chinese soil since 2023, the most at WTA level by any player in China during that period.

\n\tGauff will square off with Chinese wildcard Zhang Shuai for a place in the quarter-finals.

\n\tIn contrast, world number six Jessica Pegula survived a \u201cwild ride,\u201d needing seven match points and almost three hours to overcome fellow American Hailey Baptiste 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (8\/6).

\n\tPegula served for the win twice, at 5-2 and 5-4 in the third set, but Baptiste dug deep to save five match points and took four games in a row for a 6-5 advantage.

\n\tPegula steadied the ship to force a tiebreak and she finally wrapped up the victory on her seventh match point.

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been brutal,\u201d said Pegula, who will face Russian ninth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the third round.

\n\t\u201cMatch points, then she started playing well, I think I just got a little tentative,\u201d admitted Pegula.

\n\t\u201cAnd that\u2019s all it takes sometimes for someone to come back.

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m really proud of myself for how I held it together because I think I easily could have just collapsed. But I held tough, so yeah, that was a wild ride.\u201d

\n\tHeat again played a factor as 12th-seeded Karolina Muchova joined the likes of Emma Raducanu, Jelena Ostapenko and Dayana Yastremska on the list of mid-match retirees in Wuhan.

\n\tWith temperatures soaring above 30\u00b0C, Muchova struggled with the heat and had her vitals checked on court before she retired while trailing Magdalena Frech 7-6 (7\/1), 4-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WUHAN, China: Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka battled hard Wednesday to keep her unbeaten record in Wuhan intact,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-483327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115339375602080374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}