Laval’s Leylah Fernandez welcomed her return to the courts Monday night in Toronto by snatching a 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-3 victory over Australia’s Storm Sanders in a women’s first-round match at the National Bank Tennis Open.
It was Fernandez’s first match since suffering a foot injury in a loss to Martina Trevisan in the French Open quarter-finals on May 31.
From the first game, the Lavalloise had to defend against three break points, before creating break chances in the sixth and eighth games. She finally obtained the desired break in the 10th game of the initial set thanks to four consecutive points.
Sanders responded by breaking outright in the second set. Fernandez salvaged the break in the fourth game and both players protected their serves until the tiebreaker, which the Aussie easily won with four mini-breaks.
In the decisive set, Fernandez went for a break in the fifth game and another in the ninth game, to close the confrontation.
Fernandez, seeded 13, will play her next match on Wednesday against Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia.
In another evening game, Canada’s Katherine Sebov, ranked 299th in the world, snatched the first set from Kazakh’s Yulia Putintseva, ranked 46th in the world. However, she couldn’t keep up the pace and Putintseva eventually won 3-6, 6-2, 7-5.
In doubles, Canadians Rebecca Marino and Carol Zhao were beaten 6-3, 6-3 by Alexa Guarachi and Andreja Klepac.
Tuesday evening will mark the return of the Ontarian Bianca Andreescu, 53rd player in the world, who will have the difficult mandate to defeat the Russian Daria Kasatkina, ranked ninth in the world.
Marino and Zhao will also play their first-round singles match on Tuesday, against China’s Qinwen Zheng and America’s Amanda Anisimova, respectively.
A first for Serena
Earlier in the day, American Serena Williams earned her first win of the season, winning 6-3, 6-4 ahead of Nuria Parrizas-Diaz.
Williams has won the last three games of the match, in what is only her second tournament of 2022.
She returned to play at Wimbledon last month. There, the 23-time major singles champion lost to Harmony Tan in the first round.
“I’m just happy to have won. It had been a long time and I had forgotten what it feels like,” said the 40-year-old American.
On Monday, she won the first two games of the match en route to a victory in two hours and one minute, including three breaks of her own.
“Training is going well…. it’s about putting that into game context,” Williams said. I’m the kind of person who can quickly pick up a good pace. »
Ranked 57th in the world, Parrizas-Diaz, a 31-year-old Spaniard, had to settle for just one break in eight occasions.
Williams will have as next rival that of Belinda Bencic or Tereza Martincovà who will emerge victorious from their match on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, 15th-seeded Simona Halep defeated Donna Vekic 6-0, 6-2.
Halep was the big winner of the tournament in 2016 and 2018, in Montreal each time.
The Czechs Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova experienced opposite fates. Pliskova defeated compatriot Barbora Krejcikova in straight sets, while Kvitova lost in three sets to American Alison Riske.
In the very last match of the evening, which ended around 1 am Tuesday morning, Switzerland’s Jil Belen Teichmann defeated American Venus Williams 6-2, 6-3.