Aryna Sabalenka makes winning start at WTA Finals in Riyadh with another win over Zheng Qinwen

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is off and running at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The Australian Open and US Open champion took her first step towards not just her first year-end title, but the year-end No. 1 ranking, with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Zheng Qinwen in the first round-robin match in the Purple Group.

Sabalenka, who hopes to hold off Iga Swiatek and finish in the top spot, faced just one break point in the entirety of the one-hour and 24-minute match to improve to 5-0 against Zheng overall. That chance came for the Olympic gold medalist at 1-1 in the opening set, but Sabalenka fought it off—Zheng missed a backhand return wide and long—and was never challenged on her serve the rest of the way.

Sabalenka credited her delivery—she won 94% of the points played on her first serve in the match and serve just one double fault, in the match's final game—for making the difference in the comprehensive victory.

"I'm supper happy with the win," Sabalenka said. "I think I served really well tonight, and I put her under so much pressure."

"She's such a great player and we've always had great battles against each other. She's playing really aggressive tennis, and she kind of forces me to step in and really go for it."

It could've been argued that Sabalenka and Zheng came into the Riyadh as the two most in-form players in the field, and they played like it in tit-for-tat early goings in both sets. Dating back to topping the podium at the Paris Games, Zheng had won 23 of 27 matches which included a victory at the last WTA 500 event of the season in Tokyo just over a week ago. Sabalenka, meanwhile, entered with a 20-1 record in her last four tournaments, all on hard courts, with titles in Cincinnati, the US Open, and Wuhan.

She beat Zheng in a tense three-setter to win that Wuhan title, but there was no reprise on the indoor courts of King Saud University.

Sabalenka wrestled control of the opening set with her first break a multi-deuce sixth game, with a double fault giving her a break point that she converted with a big backhand return. The first eight games of the second set went with serve, too, with neither woman even being forced to deuce before the top seed wrapped up the win by winning the last two games.

Sabalenka's win puts her atop of a round-robin group that also includes Jasmine Paolini and Elena Rybakina as she bids to make at least the semifinals of the year-end event for the third year in a row.