A RARE three-peat of Wuhan Open titles will feature in world number two Aryna Sabalenka‘s trophy cabinet after the top seed defeated local hope Qinwen Zheng in a hard-fought WTA Tour 1000 final overnight. The Belarusian had her tightest encounter with China’s top player yet, winning 6-3 5-7 6-3 in two hours and 40 minutes.

It is the pair’s first meeting outside a Grand Slam, with Sabalenka having the better of Zheng at back-to-back US Opens the past two years, as well as at Melbourne Park earlier this year. On each occasion, Zheng has failed to win more than four games in a set, and in fact has only won five, five and three games in each of the respective contests despite going up the world rankings each time.

At Wuhan in front of her home fans, Zheng showed much more fight, with the fifth seed battling to reach her first WTA Finals. She looked down early with a first set loss, before doing something she has never done before, by taking a set off the dominant top seed. Despite her best efforts, Sabalenka regained control of the match and won in three sets.

“First of all I would say the conditions are probably a little bit better for her here,” Sabalenka said of the tighter contest post-match. “It’s much slower and the ball’s getting heavier. She has more things to do on the court when it’s slower.

“Honestly, I felt like I just lost little bit focus and I let her come back in the match. I got a little bit frustrated there. It became a three-set match. Balls are getting heavier, it’s third set, a bit emotional.”

It was a fitting number three, with Sabalenka now having not only defended her title last year, but now collecting the 2022-24 titles all up. It was the world number two’s seventh career WTA 1000 title, the same ranking as Zheng is in the world, while being her fourth title of the year.

Sabalenka served seven aces and went at 70 per cent serving efficiency, but surprisingly could only manage 58 per cent off her first serve. However Zheng’s inability to have a remotely decent first serve efficiency came back to bite her again, only going at 42 per cent, but winning 30 of 41 points off her first serve (73 per cent). She also served five aces, but eight double faults.

Both players created 12 break point chances, but Sabalenka was able to capitalise on seven, compared to Zheng’s five. Once Sabalenka had a double-break lead in the deciding set – before Zheng broke back – it was as good as done, and the top seeded player who is eyeing off chasing down the number one spot in the world by year’s end, finished the tournament on a high for the third consecutive year.

“Really tight ranking right now,” Sabalenka said. “Really nice to see. I always say of course it’s one of the goals, but I prefer focus on myself and just keep working hard. We’ll see after the Finals if I was good enough this season to become world number one.”