Sabalenka is the top seed at Wuhan in the absence of Swiatek, who withdrew from the WTA 1000 tournament after announcing her split with her coach of three years, Tomasz Wiktorowski.

Sabalenka, who was upset in the quarter-finals in Beijing last week by Karolina Muchova to end a 15-match win streak, can become the first three-time winner at Wuhan.

But Sabalenka said Sunday in Wuhan that she cannot afford to put pressure on herself.

“Of course this is something I really want to do (become number one), it is one of my goals,” said the Belarusian, who won the Australian and US Opens this year.

“But I learned in the past that if you focus on the rankings and defending points and all that kind of pressure, things can easily go wrong.

“So I prefer to focus on myself and when I’m on court I just try to bring my best tennis and fight for every point.

“If I’ll be able to bring my best tennis I know that I can become world number one.”

The Wuhan Open is back on the WTA calendar for the first time since 2019, before the Covid pandemic.

The 56-player main draw begins on Monday featuring seven of the world’s top 10.

Sabalenka clinched back-to-back Wuhan titles in 2018 and 2019.

She has a bye into the second round and will begin her quest for a hat-trick against Filipina wildcard Alexandra Eala or Czech top-40 player Katerina Siniakova.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here and I remember the first time winning Wuhan was a very special moment,” said Sabalenka.

“Winning it two times in a row, that was very special. I was really sad that I couldn’t come back the following year.

“And now coming back, everything feels like home and I have really beautiful memories from the past. I really hope I can replicate my result from 2019.”

Sabalenka, who claimed a third career Grand Slam title at the US Open last month, is just over 1,000 points behind Swiatek in the rankings.

The battle to be on the summit at the year-end is likely to go down to the wire at the season-ending WTA Finals in Riyadh next month.