Top seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus advanced to the quarterfinals of the Shenzhen Open for the second year in a row, awaiting a meeting with fifth seed Maria Sharapova, to whom she lost in the Tianjin 2017 finals in their only previous encounter on tour.
The world No.13 Sabalenka recorded a 6-3 6-3 victory over Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova, after having her serve broken early in the third game of the match but coming back strongly to break her opponent in the fourth and eight games to take a one set lead.