Aryna Sabalenka shines in first match as No. 1, overpowering Kenin in Beijing opener

Aryna Sabalenka was in blistering form in her first match as No. 1 on the WTA rankings on Sunday, cooling off a red-hot Sofia Kenin in her opening match at the WTA 1000 event in Beijing, 6-1, 6-2.

The 25-year-old is playing her first tournament since rising to the top spot 20 days ago after reaching her second major final of the year at the US Open, where she finished runner-up to Coco Gauff.

And she would have been hard pressed to find a tougher first-round opponent in Beijing than Kenin—the American, a former No. 4, has cut her ranking by exactly two thirds over the last few weeks from No. 93 to No. 31 after reaching the final of the WTA 500 event in San Diego and the semifinals of the WTA 1000 event in Guadalajara.

She had won eight of her last 10 matches in that stretch—but none of that mattered against a dialed-in Sabalenka, who needed just 66 minutes to advance to the second round in the Chinese capital.

In a battle between two Australian Open champions—Kenin in 2020, Sabalenka this year—both players held serve to start the match, but from there it was all Sabalenka, who won eight of the next nine games to build a 6-1, 3-1 lead, and after Kenin put one more hold on the board to close the gap in the second set to 3-2, Sabalenka reeled off the last three games of the match to close it out.

Not only did Sabalenka finish with more than twice as many winners as unforced errors, 22 to 9, she also finished with more than twice as many points as her opponent in the match, 61 to 28.

She never faced a break point in eight service games.

Awaiting her in the second round will be the winner of an all-qualifier clash between Britain’s Katie Boulter and Poland’s Magdalena Frech.