The main draw at the Madrid tennis tournament features one fewer Canadian in women’s singles, Rebecca Marino suffering a crushing 6-3, 6-1 loss to Belgium’s Elise Mertens on Thursday.
The winner did not skimp against the 79th player in the world, whom she defeated in 1 h 16 min. The 29th-ranked WTA player took advantage of her serving rival’s largesse to score six breaks in 11 chances. Mertens won 70.0% of the points played when she had the first balls in her possession, compared to 51.9% for Marino under identical circumstances.
Read also : Eugenie Bouchard’s excellent streak continues
Read also : Leylah Fernandez beaten by 15-year-old rising star
Poland’s Iga Swiatek is the favorite in the clay-court competition and will play her second-round duel against Austria’s Julia Grabher on Friday.
Eugenie and Bianca
On the same day, the two maple leaf athletes still in contention will also set foot on the field. Quebecer Eugenie Bouchard, 285th on the professional circuit, will have the heavy task of competing against Italian Martina Trevisan (20th). “Genie” is having a good time in Spain, having won two qualifying matches before beating Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska in three sets on Wednesday.
For her part, Ontario’s Bianca Andreescu (27th) will return to action after suffering ligament injuries to her left ankle in Miami a few weeks ago. She will cross swords with the Chinese Xiyu Wang, 65th in the world.
Having bowed out on her first singles outing, Leylah Fernandez will play doubles alongside American Taylor Townsend against the duo of Latvian Jelena Ostapenko and Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok.
Among the men, Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov will make their debut on Friday. The first will come up against Dusan Lajovic, whom “FAA” has never defeated in two clashes. The second has an appointment with Zhang Zhizhen.