Skip to main content Skip to footer 
US Open finalist Jessica Pegula suffered a surprising defeat in the last 16 of the China Open, falling 6-4, 6-0 to Spain’s Paula Badosa. The American world number three, seeded second in Beijing, was outplayed in just over an hour.
Despite an early break and a 3-1 lead in the first set, Pegula was unable to hold off a dominant Badosa, who won 11 of the next 12 games, including an eight-game streak, to secure her first win over a top-five player since 2022.
“She’s one of the players I never want to face,” said Badosa, currently ranked 19th in the world. “She’s very solid, hits very flat, and changes direction very well, so I knew it was going to be tough.”
Badosa will now face Zhang Shuai in the quarter-finals. Zhang, ranked 595th in the world, continued her remarkable run with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Poland’s Magdalena Frech. Despite entering the tournament on the back of a 24-match losing streak spanning over 600 days, Zhang has won all four of her matches in Beijing without dropping a set.
Zhang, a two-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist, is the lowest-ranked player to compete in the main draw of a WTA 1000 event like the China Open, making her current success even more extraordinary.
