Tuesday’s evening session was a pleasant one for Canadian fans at the National Bank Open in Toronto as local hope Bianca Andreescu cooled off one of the hottest players on tour to win her first-round match.
2019 champion Andreescu knocked out No. 11 seed Daria Kasatkina 7-6(5), 6-4 to reach the second round of the event for the third time in her career.
Here are some more fast facts about her disorder:
10: The win marks Andreescu’s 10th Top 10 win of her career. Former world No.4 Andreescu picked up her first eight Top 10 wins during her breakout season in 2019, but she only claimed her ninth earlier this year when she beat Daniel Collins in Madrid.
3: Andreescu improved her career record to 3-0 against Kasatkina. Kasatkina rose to a new career high of No. 9 this week after her title in San Jose on Sunday, but Andreescu was able to maintain her unbeaten record against Kasatkina with the two-and-a-half-hour victory.
“I was very happy with how relaxed I was,” Andreescu said afterwards. “That’s what I did the last two times I played [Kasatkina] — I just stayed as calm as I could. It’s obviously consistent but also aggressive because you don’t always want to go into those long rallies with it. I mean, she loves it.”
31: Andreescu finished the match with 31 winners to Kasatkina’s 18. Otherwise, very little separated the pair in the match, with Andreescu holding a slim lead in serves (eight to seven) and total points won (89 to 85).
85: The grueling opening set took 85 minutes to complete. The first five games were against serve before Andreescu became the first player to hold for 4-2. However, Kasatkina saved two set points at 5-3 and went on to break Andreescu at 5-5.
In the tiebreak, Andreescu came back from 3-1 down to take a one-set lead with a winner on top, despite a medical stoppage earlier in the set, at 6-5.
Another back-and-forth set ensued, with seven of 10 games coming against serve, but Andreescu closed out the match by breaking Kasatkina for the final time with a volley winner.
0-2: In the second round, Andreescu will face a player against whom he has had minimal success: France’s Alizee Cornet. Korne won their previous two meetings in straight sets, which took place on grass last year, in Berlin and two weeks later in the first round at Wimbledon.
“[Cornet is] fighter,” Andreescu said. “I think she’s the one who stopped Iga [Swiatek’s 37-match winning] series right? So she’s definitely going. But I’m looking forward to it and hopefully I can get my revenge.”
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