Canada’s Bianca Andreescu and China’s Yue Yuan advanced to the women’s doubles quarterfinals at the Wuhan Open without striking a ball Thursday.

Top-seeded Italians Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani withdrew before their match, giving Andreescu and Yuan a walkover victory.

Paolini later reached the singles quarterfinals after her opponent, Denmark’s Clara Tauson, retired while trailing 3-6, 6-1, 3-1.

Andreescu, of Mississauga, Ont., and Yuan will next face Kazakhstan’s Anna Danilina and Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic, the No. 8 seeds.

Meanwhile, Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., and partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand were eliminated in the round of 16 on Thursday after falling 4-6, 6-4, 10-4 to Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic and Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia.

Routliffe, who lives in Montreal, regularly plays with another Canadian, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa — the pair won the U.S. Open women’s doubles title last month.

Women’s favourites advance

U.S. Open champion Aryna Sabalenka’s winning streak at the Wuhan Open rolled on to 19 matches when she beat Liudmila Samsonova 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000-level tournament.

Top-ranked Sabalenka’s streak includes winning titles at Wuhan in 2018, ’19 and ’24.

No. 2-ranked Iga Swiatek also advanced, winning 7-6 (2), 6-4 against Belinda Bencic, the former Olympic champion.

Swiatek improved to a 5-1 career record over Bencic, including a straight-sets win in the Wimbledon semifinals in July.

In the late match, No. 3 Coco Gauff, coming off a semifinal loss to eventual champion Amanda Anisimova at the China Open last week, eased past Zhang Shuai 6-3, 6-2.

Swiatek to face Paolini

Sabalenka will next play eighth-seeded Elena Rybakina, who won 6-3, 6-4 over Linda Noskova and is seeking to earn an entry to the WTA Finals event in Saudi Arabia.

Swiatek’s quarterfinals opponent is Jasmine Paolini and Gauff next plays Laura Siegemund.

Earlier, Jessica Pegula recovered from an early service break in the third set to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 and also advance to the final eight. Sixth-seeded Pegula, who lost in the China Open semifinals last week, levelled the deciding set at 2-2, then won four of the last five games for victory.

The win over No. 9 Alexandrova came a day after Pegula needed seven match points to beat fellow American Hailey Baptiste in the second round.

It was Pegula’s sixth straight three-set match, and for the fifth time, she won.