World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka thrashed in Dubai as Jasmine Paolini s title defence ends

DUBAI - World number one Aryna Sabalenka slumped to a 6-3, 6-2 loss against Denmark’s Clara Tauson in the last 16 of the Dubai Championships on Feb 19, as Jasmine Paolini’s title defence came to a painful end.

Sabalenka, who beat the 38th-ranked Tauson on her way to January’s Australian Open final, suffered a second straight premature exit after losing in her opening match in Qatar a week ago.

Tauson broke Sabalenka’s serve six times and the Dane will go on to play Czech youngster Linda Noskova, who knocked out fifth seed Jessica Pegula in straight sets to reach the quarter-finals.

The 22-year-old Tauson beat Noskova in the first round of the Australian Open. She also won the title in Auckland at the start of January and made the semi-finals in Linz earlier this month.

Noskova will have her shot at revenge on Feb 20 after beating Pegula 6-3, 7-6 (10/8).

Defending champion Paolini suffered an ankle injury and was dumped out by Sofia Kenin as the fourth seed from Italy lost 6-4, 6-0 in just over an hour.

Kenin, the world number 27, raced to a 5-2 lead in the opening set before closing the door on a Paolini fightback.

Any hopes Paolini had of forcing the match to a deciding set were undone when she took a bad fall early in the second set.

Rolling over her right ankle mid-rally she played on, but was obviously suffering, and in tears.

This was Kenin’s first win over a top-five player since her victorious title run at the 2020 Australian Open.

Kenin’s reward for defeating 2024’s Wimbledon and French Open finalist was a quarter-final date with Elena Rybakina after the Kazakh