nine match points to finish<\/a>.<\/p>\nBadosa knew what was coming her way when she saw Kasatkina in her draw as Badosa’s first practice session was with Kasatkina in Beijing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think it was also very emotional roller-coaster match because we were both wanting it so badly,” Badosa said to media. “I know also was going to be very tactical match and physical. I saw at the end, she was struggling a bit, and I thought, this is my moment now. I’m happy that I go through it, especially mentally was a mental battle for me.”<\/p>\n
In 2025, Badosa entered those Wimbledon and Beijing tournaments ranked No. 9 and No. 18, respectively. With many missed tournaments at the end of last season and unsuccessfully defending semifinal points in Melbourne in January, Badosa’s ranking slipped gradually to as low as No. 142 a few months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, with her level of play since Bastad, Badosa is starting to see light on the other side.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a very tough year for me, especially mentally, I couldn’t at the beginning feel myself, see myself on court,” Badosa said. “Now, I think slowly I’m seeing again that Paula that I want to be. I’m one of the best players in the world.”<\/p>\n
The immediate goal for Badosa and her team the rest of the season is to play as many matches as possible ahead of a full preseason training camp that wasn’t possible with her injuries last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Badosa has nothing to lose in the coming months — literally. Aside from reaching the third round in Beijing, Badosa did not play any tournaments after and therefore will have opportunities to add ranking points without the added pressure of defending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
”
\n “It’s been a very tough year for me, especially mentally. I couldn’t at the beginning feel myself, see myself on court. Now, I think slowly I’m seeing again that Paula that I want to be. I’m one of the best players in the world.
\n ”<\/p>\n
Paula Badosa after her China Open win vs. Kasatkina<\/p>\n
“The situation is much more positive because the good part of not winning a lot of at the beginning, I don’t have a lot to defend,” Badosa said. “It looks good in a way if I keep winning matches. I’m very proud that I could now in summer play a lot and win. I’m looking forward for the future, and hopefully it’s a good one.”<\/p>\n
Simply, Badosa said she wants her ranking as high as possible. Including Beijing, she’s aiming for four to five more tournaments of her 2026 season. Lightheartedly, she joked that she’s trying to avoid how US Open unfolded, where she had to play World No. 4 Coco Gauff in the second round because her then No. 87 ranking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Hopefully I can play a lot there because then I will have the preseason to prepare for Australia,so that’s a little bit the goal with the team to play as many matches as possible…. and also to not have situations like US Open.<\/p>\n
“Even though it was good, it was positive, but I prefer to play Coco in later stages [laughing].”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING — Last year, Paula Badosa entered the China Open off a two-month injury layoff following Wimbledon.\u00a0 On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-790474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790474","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=790474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}