Friday’s quarterfinals at the Dongfeng Voyah · Wuhan Open offer a little bit of everything. To start, four of the Top 5 seeds are ready.

It starts with No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka, who is looking for her fourth title of the year – and her third in her past four events.

There’s the hot popcorn night match between No. 3 Jasmine Paolini and No. 5 Zheng Qinwen, while No. 4 Coco Gauff is in action, plus an unexpected unseeded meeting of Ekaterina Alexandrova and Wang Xinyu.

Wuhan: Scores | Schedule | Pulls

Poland also has two survivors (none named Swiatek), two Magdas, as in Magda Linette and Magdalena Frech.

Let’s break it down:

Top half

No.1 Aryna Sabalenka vs. Magdalena Frech, Friday, not before 3:00 PM local time

Head to head: 0-0

How they got here: Sabalenka was a 1-6, 6-4, 6-0 winner over Yulia Putintseva, while Frech defeated Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 6-2.

Sabalenka lost six of seven games in a daunting first set, but rallied to win twelve of the last sixteen. It was her sixth comeback win of the year in a WTA 1000, the most of any player.

Remarkably, it was her eleventh^e consecutive WTA Tour quarter-finals, something only Iga Swiatek has achieved in the last fifteen years.

“Honestly, (first set), I couldn’t do anything,” Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. “Somehow I managed to find my serve, intervene and put pressure on her. I felt like everything I did was going to end up in there.”

That’s the mentality of a champion. Sabalenka won 17 of the 28 return points in the crucial third set. After seeing her 15-match winning streak halted in the Beijing quarter-finals, Karolina Muchova has now won 17 of 19 matches – and 14 in a row in Wuhan, where she attempts a rare three-peat to return to titles in 2018 and 2019.

Frech is on a great run, though, winning 10 of 11 matches, dating back to her title in the Guadalajara 500. She upset No. 6 seed Emma Navarro in the second round and now No. 9 Haddad Maia.

This is the biggest quarterfinal of Frech’s career.

No.4 Coco Gauff vs. Magda Linette, Friday, 11 a.m

Head to head: Gauff 1-0, a three-set win in the first round at the 2021 US Open

How they got here: Gauff defeated No. 13 Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-1. Magda Linette was a 6-2, 6-3 winner over No. 8 Daria Kasatkina.

Credit Gauff with real grit as the season comes to a close. She won the title in Beijing last week and the victory over Kostyuk was her eighth consecutive.

“When I go into Wuhan, I don’t feel any pressure, nothing at all, just because Beijing is over, it’s in the past,” Gauff told reporters. “If you look at some of the players who made it to the semi-finals (Beijing), almost all of them, except me and Qinwen, withdrew because it was such a quick turnaround.

“It wasn’t really a thought in my head. “I just wanted to push myself on how to play when I’m tired, because I’m tired, I’m not going to sit here and lie.”

Only Swiatek (30) and Sabalenka (24) have won more WTA 1000 matches this year than 20-year-old Gauff (22).

Linette has had an impressive journey in Wuhan, winning three matches in a row for the first time since winning the title in Prague in July. She has won all five of her sets, including her first-round match against No. 11 Liudmila Samsonova and a second-round victory over Lesia Tsurenko via retirement.

Bottom half

No.3 Jasmine Paolini vs. No.5 Zheng Qinwen, Friday, 7pm

Head to head: Zheng, 2-0, won four of five sets in the Palermo final and Zhengzhou semifinals last year.

How they got here: Zheng came back to beat Leylah Fernandez 5-7, 6-3, 6-0. Paolini was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over lucky loser Erika Andreeva.

The win over Fernandez was big for Zheng, who is battling Emma Navarro for a spot in the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The Chinese favorite – and Olympic singles gold medalist – lost to Muchova in the Beijing semi-finals.

“The match was tough for me because when I entered the field, I felt pain in my stomach,” Zheng said afterward. “That’s why I’m very happy that I get this match, even though I’m not physically there.”

Zheng thrives in China. This century, only Serena Williams has a higher winning percentage in this country among players with 15 or more matches – the 21-year-old is already a stellar 14-3.

Worth noting: Only Emma Navarro (18) has won more matches in three sets than Zheng (17) in WTA Tour events this year.

Meanwhile, Paolini is in her sixth quarterfinal of the year, and her first since Wimbledon. This has been a historic season for the 28-year-old from Italy.

This was her 13^e victory at a WTA 1000 this year – among the Italians, only Sara Errani (19) and Roberta Vinci (14) have more in one season. Furthermore, only Swiatek (45), Sabalenka (42) and Gauff (38) have won more matches in 2024 than Paolini’s 31.

Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Wang Xinyu, Friday, after Gauff-Linette

Head to head: Alexandrova won the most recent match last year in Cleveland 1-1, having previously lost their first meeting at Indian Wells.

How they got here: Alexandrova took care of rising American qualifier Hailey Baptiste 6-1, 6-1. Wang scored the biggest upset of the Round of 16, beating No. 2 seed Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-5.

Pegula had won eleven straight matches against players outside the Top 50, but Wang defeated her for the second time in two meetings. With Pegula in third place, it was her biggest victory in the rankings.

Wang is the second Chinese player to beat a Top 10 at the Wuhan Open, after Wang Qiang, who defeated Karolina Pliskova as a wild card in 2018.

“I played her twice,” Wang said of Alexandrova. “I really practiced with her. I understand she plays very fast. I will focus on my service games. I can do better, which means I have less pressure on returns.”

There were some early flurries — reaching the final in Linz and the semifinals of the Miami Open — that lifted Alexandrova to a career-high No. 15 in April. But Alexandrova entered Wuhan with a 23-22 singles record.

She opened with a pair of three-set wins over Sofia Kenin and No. 10 seed Anna Kalinskaya – then defeated Baptiste in just 63 minutes.