For a second time this week, the French Caroline Garcia intervened in the course of the Quebecer Leylah Fernandez at the Wimbledon Tennis Open.
In a women’s doubles second-round match on Sunday, Fernandez and her American partner Taylor Townsend went down in three sets against Garcia and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani, who prevailed 6-4, 6-7(6), 6 -3, in two hours 15 minutes.
On Thursday, in the second round of women’s singles, Fernandez suffered a heartbreaking loss in three sets against Garcia, a player ranked fifth in the world in singles but only 88th in doubles.
The elimination of Fernandez and Townsend comes less than a month after their qualification for the doubles final at the French Open on June 11. They had then lost in three sets against the tandem formed by the Chinese Wang Xinyu and the Taiwanese Hsieh Su-Wei.
On Sunday, the two North Americans, seeded sixth in the women’s doubles table, faced just three break points but saved only one.
Fernandez and Townsend, who cleared match point in the second-set tiebreaker, lost serve in the fifth game of the opening set, and in the second game of the third set.
After this break of service in the third set, Garcia and Stefani conceded only two points on their serve the rest of the match, and none in their last three service games.
Fernandez and Townsend were also unable to convert their four break chances, including one in the sixth game of the first set which would have allowed them to return to equal service.
Fernandez and Townsend concluded the duel with three aces and five double faults. They hit 65 percent of their first serves and won 73 percent of the points after landing their first ball in play. In both categories, Garcia and Stefani outperformed their rivals, with success rates of 72 percent and 81 percent, respectively.
Fernandez is also entered in mixed doubles, along with Dutchman Wesley Koolhof, and is scheduled to play her first-round match later on Sunday.
Meanwhile, shortly after the Fernandez loss, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and her partner Rohan Bopanna of India were eliminated in the first round of mixed doubles to Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Latisha Chan of Chinese Taipei, who prevailed 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4.
This afternoon, on court number 2, Ontario’s Denis Shapovalov is trying to qualify for the quarter-finals of the men’s singles as he takes on Russian Roman Safiullin.