Aryna Sabalenka said she was “trying so hard to be easier on myself” as she began her China Open campaign with victory over Renata Zarazua.<\/p>\n
World number two Sabalenka hit 11 aces and did not face a break point in a 6-1 6-3 victory over the Mexican.<\/p>\n
The Belarusian needed just 63 minutes to win her first match since losing her world number one ranking and her US Open crown to Elena Rybakina in September.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old is bidding for her first title since completing the ‘Sunshine Double’ in March, when she won Indian Wells and the Miami Open back-to-back.<\/p>\n
It has been a mixed year for Sabalenka by her high standards. She will finish without a Grand Slam trophy for the first time since 2022 and has often struggled to control her frustrations on court.<\/p>\n
Asked about being so self-critical, Sabalenka said: “I think this is a good and a bad side of my personality, that I always ask and wait for more from myself. <\/p>\n
“Sometimes it can drive me forward, but sometimes it can really drain my energy.<\/p>\n
“Maybe this is something I have to finally learn. I’m really trying so hard sometimes to be easier on myself.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka will face Czech 20-year-old Nikola Bartunkova – who came close to beating her at the Berlin Open in June – in the third round.<\/p>\n
Top seed Rybakina begins her campaign at the WTA 1000 event on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Britain’s Katie Boulter fell 7-6 (7-3) 6-1 to Wimbledon runner-up Karolina Muchova, while French Open champion Mirra Andreeva recovered to beat Chinese wildcard Yuan Yue 3-6 6-0 6-0.<\/p>\n
In the men’s event, sixth seed Daniil Medvedev produced 12 aces to beat Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta 6-4 6-2.<\/p>\n
British pair Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool advanced in the doubles, beating Russia’s Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov 6-3 6-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka said she was “trying so hard to be easier on myself” as she began her China…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-789832","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\/789832","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=789832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}