ABANDA PULLS OFF THE UPSET
Advances to Rogers Cup 2nd round
Françoise Abanda wasn’t supposed to receive a wild card into the main draw at the Rogers Cup, but when she was given the opportunity, she made the most of it.
Abanda was the lone Canadian to survive the first round of singles play Tuesday, upsetting Belgian Kirsten Flipkens 6-3, 6-2 Tuesday night. The win earned her an appearance in IGA Stadium Wednesday afternoon against third-seeded Sloane Stephens of the U.S.
“I expected to play (in the qualifying ) Saturday and I wind up playing Tuesday night (in the main draw) so you never know what’s going to happen,” Abanda said after the match. “Now, I’m playing the No. 3 player in the world. It’s going to be a tough match, but I’m going to be fearless.”
The 21-year-old Abanda, whose ranking slipped to No. 191 after she lost in the first round of qualifying at Wimbledon, was awarded the wild card after Bianca Andreescu withdrew with a back injury.
Abanda had the Banque Nationale grandstand rocking as she took advantage of numerous errors from Flipkens, who is ranked No. 47. Abanda won 85 per cent of the points on her first serve and broke Flipkens’s serve four times.
“Tonight, I knew she was steady and had more experience but I just tried to avoid mistakes,” Abanda said. “I served well in the first set and I returned well. The toughest part was closing the match at the end but I got it done.”
On Wednesday, Abanda will be the third afternoon match on Centre Court.
The win provided Canadian fans something to cheer after Eugenie Bouchard and Carol Zhao lost afternoon matches.
Bouchard’s history of disappointing performances in the Rogers Cup continued with a 6-2, 6-4 loss to 14th-seeded Elise Mertens of the Netherlands.
Make no mistake, Mertens is the better player. Bouchard had her moments, but the sign of a good player is the ability to win the crucial points. Bouchard had 11 break points against Mertens and cashed in on only two of them.
Mertens raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, breaking Bouchard three times while Bouchard went 0-for-7 on her break opportunities.
“I didn’t start well at all today,” said Bouchard, who has a 4-11 record in the Rogers Cup. “Finally at the end of the first set, I was kind of letting go with my shots a little more and physically moving a little more. Against a top-20 player, you have to be firing on all cylinders, doing everything well. Yeah, disappointed with that. But like I said, with a lot of things not going my way today, I was still competitive with a girl who plays some good tennis, so I’m going to stay positive.”
In the second set, Bouchard, who is ranked No. 129, showed some of the fighting spirit that was her trademark in 2014 when she reached the Wimbledon final and rose to a career-high No. 5 in the rankings. She had a 3-0 lead when she took an injury timeout for treatment of a blister on her left foot. When play resumed. Mertens won the next five games en route to victory.
“I’m not going to let today get me down because a lot didn’t go my way today,” Bouchard said. “I feel at the end of the day I didn’t deserve to win the match. I didn’t play good enough tennis. But it’s fine. Just gives me a lot to work on, and I look forward to that.”
No. 18 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands needed only 58 minutes to beat Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill, Ont., 6-1, 6-2. Zhao, who is No. 137, was returning after a month off with an injury, but she was no match for the more experienced Bertens.
The Dutch player dominated with her serve — she had nine aces including four in her first two service games.
Zhao did have an excuse. She’s been battling an elbow injury for the past three months.
“I took some time off and I’ve been working really hard on rehab and stuff,” Zhao said. “Unfortunately, yesterday I had a little accident (and) I wasn’t able to perform physically 100 per cent. But I gave it my all out there.”
Britain’s Johanna Konta produced the first upset of the tournament when she rallied to defeated 11th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-2.
Konta jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first set, but said she had problems because there was no time for a warm-up before the match. An early morning rain meant the grounds crew had to hustle to get the courts ready for the 11 a.m. start.
“I think both of us faced the challenge going out today of not being able to hit before our match because of the way our weather was,” Konta said. “It wasn’t our friend. There was always going to be that portion of the match where we were going to both try to find our footing, try to find rhythm. She’s the kind of player that doesn’t give you much rhythm anyway.”
Naomi Osaka of Japan, the 16th seed, lost to Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain 7-6 (2), 6-2 in a minor upset. Suarez Navarro is a former top10 player who is currently ranked No. 27, but she had to go through two rounds of qualifying because she missed the deadline for a direct entry into the main draw.
Crowd favourite Maria Sharapova defeated Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria 6-1, 6-1 in a match that was halted by rain Monday night and another former No. 1, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, defeated Kristina Mladenovic of France 6-0, 6-1.