Quebecers Félix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez will continue their journey at the Cincinnati tournament on Wednesday, having won respectively at the expense of American Aleksandar Kovacevic and Chinese Yue Yuan.
After an excellent run at the Paris Olympics, then a fall in the first round at the National Bank Open in Montreal, Auger-Aliassime put an end to a streak of three losses in singles with a 6-3, 6-1 victory against Kovacevic (79e).
The Quebecer, ranked 19e in the world, erased a 0-30 deficit as Kovacevic had the balls in hand to break again in the second set and take a 4-0 lead. His opponent responded with a break in the very next game, but he was never able to come from behind.
Auger-Aliassime served for the 5-1 victory and ended the hostilities with his first match point. He placed 50% of his first serves in play in the match, winning 73% of the rallies with this one and 58% with his second.
The meeting lasted 74 minutes.
This was the first match between Auger-Aliassime and Kovacevic. The latter qualified for the main draw of this Masters 1000 tournament with victories against the Spaniard Pedro Martinez (43e) and the Australian Rinky Hijikata (65e), both ranked higher than him.
Auger-Aliassime will face Norwegian Casper Ruud (eighth) in the second round. The two men split the honours in their first six duels, but the Quebecer has had the upper hand in the last two. He won in the quarter-finals at the Paris Olympics, and in the round of 16 in Madrid.
Ruud is chasing a third ATP Tour title this year.
Auger-Aliassime made it to the semifinals of the singles tournament at the Paris Games, losing to eventual silver medalist Carlos Alcaraz of Spain. He then lost the bronze medal match to Lorenzo Musetti of Italy. He still won bronze with Gabriela Dabrowski in the mixed doubles.
In Montreal, Auger-Aliassime was soundly defeated 6-3 and 6-2 in 68 minutes by the Italian Flavio Cobolli.
For his part, Fernandez (27e) managed to put a seven-game losing streak behind her to defeat Yuan (40)e) 3-6, 6-4 and 6-3.
Fernandez led 2-1 in the first set when she dropped five straight games. She opened the second set with a third straight break and trailed 4-2 when she got going.
The Laval player herself won five games in a row, then broke her opponent’s serve twice in the final set to win.
Fernandez now faces fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the second round. Rybakina won the only meeting between them, in the quarter-finals at this year’s Doha tournament.
Bianca Andreescu (166e) was also in the main draw, but she lost 6-4 and 7-5 to Armenia’s Elina Avanesyan (60).e), Monday.