Kazakh tennis player Yulia Putintseva (world No. 79) ended her run at the Wuhan Open, losing in the second round to Russia's Diana Shnaider (13) 2-6, 2-6, infohub.kz reports.
Putintseva began her campaign at the Chinese WTA 1000 event in qualifying, which she successfully navigated. In the first round of the main draw, she defeated Turkey's top player Zeynep Sonmez (59) 6-7 (1-7), 6-3, 7-5. However, she could not overcome the Russian No. 2 and two-time bronze medalist of the 2026 Asian Games, despite having led their head-to-head 2-0 before today.
In the first set, Diana answered Yulia's one break with three and won from her first set point, 6-2. In the second set, almost nothing went right for Putintseva: she grew nervous, frequently mishit, and took out her frustration on her racket. After regrouping at 0-4, Yulia broke her opponent's serve twice in a row but also dropped her own. On her fifth match point, Shnaider stopped the clock at 1 hour 19 minutes, 6-2, 6-2.
As a result, Kazakhstan has no representatives left in singles. World No. 1 Elena Rybakina, while recovering from injury, withdrew from defending the 215 ranking points she earned in Wuhan last year. The 2025 champion, Coco Gauff of the United States, who is also skipping the tournament, will lose 1,000 points. All other Top 10 players are competing in the WTA 1000 event.
In doubles, Kazakhstan will be represented in Wuhan by another bronze medalist of the 2026 Asian Games. Anna Danilina, 31, (6) will begin play in the second round alongside 37-year-old Chinese player Zhang Shuai (7). The Kazakh-Chinese pair is seeded second in Wuhan. Last year, Danilina and Serbia's Aleksandra Krunic reached the final here.
The women's Wuhan Open replaced the Japanese WTA 500 Pan Pacific Open in the tennis calendar in 2014. Since 2025, the Wuhan Open has held WTA 1000 status.
Due to the tragic reasons that made the city of Wuhan famous worldwide, the tournament was not held from 2020 to 2023. Before that, it was won by Czech Petra Kvitova (2014, 2016), American Venus Williams (2015), Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia (2017), and three times in a row by Aryna Sabalenka (2018, 2019, 2024).