After easily winning the first set, Laval’s Leylah Annie Fernandez was eliminated by Romanian Ana Bogdan in three sets of 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-2 on Tuesday in a first-round duel at the Cleveland tournament.
Fernandez, ranked 24e WTA rank, needed just 36 minutes to complete the first set before breaking Bogdan’s serve, 103e in the world, from the opening game of the second set.
The two players then traded five breaks over the next 11 games of the second set to find themselves in a tiebreaker in which Fernandez lost all four of her service points.
Fernandez then dropped the first five games of the third set, including three on his own serve, before saving face by winning the sixth game of the set on Bogdan’s serve.
Fernandez then had to save seven match points on his serve in the seventh game, forcing an eighth game which Bogdan won easily.
Fernandez finished the match with three aces but 11 double faults. She managed seven breaks of serve but conceded as many, out of 17 break chances granted to her opponent.
In the evening, in doubles, Leylah and her sister Bianca lost 6-4, 6-3 against the pair composed of the Brazilian Ingrid Gamarra Martins and the American Quinn Gleason.
Both sisters struggled with their serve, committing four double faults and serving only 66 percent of their first serves.
Leylah and Bianca were therefore unable to recreate the magic of Toronto, where they had reached the semi-finals. They had then lost 6-2, 6-4 to the competition favourites, Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealander Erin Routliffe.
In Monterrey, Canadian Carol Zhao suffered the same fate as her compatriot, being eliminated in the first round.
The 268e The world player lost 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-2 to Croatian Petra Martic, ranked 108e rank in the WTA.
Zhao hit five aces and committed 12 double faults while her opponent hit four aces and committed eight double faults. Martic, however, was the more opportunistic, breaking the 29-year-old Ontarian four times and winning the first-set tiebreaker.