{"id":355203,"date":"2026-01-06T13:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/355203\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T13:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:25:09","slug":"aryna-sabalenka-defends-battle-of-the-sexes-match-after-brisbane-international-win-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/355203\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka defends ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match after Brisbane International win"},"content":{"rendered":"

British number four Katie Boulter started her season with victory over Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva at the ASB Classic in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Playing her first match since October – and her first under new coach Michael Joyce<\/a> – Boulter triumphed 6-3 6-3 in the first round.<\/p>\n

Given a main draw wildcard for the WTA 250 tournament, she will face top seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine next.<\/p>\n

Boulter missed out on a place in the main draw of the Australian Open after falling out of the world’s top 100.<\/p>\n

She is currently the third alternate and, without sufficient withdrawals, will need to win through qualifying at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n

Compatriot Sonay Kartal beat Indonesia’s Janice Tjen 6-1 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 in the first round in Auckland.<\/p>\n

World number Kartal 68, who reached the last 16 of Wimbledon in 2025, will play Germany’s Ella Seidel in round two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British number four Katie Boulter started her season with victory over Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva at the ASB Classic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-355203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}