Photo : Martin Sidorjak
There was no letdown for Bianca Andreescu after she caused an upset in round one of Roland-Garros as the Canadian breezed into the third round of the French Open on Thursday with a straight-set win over Emma Navarro.
Everything was clicking for the Canadian, who used a balance of powerful hitting and crafty shot-making to keep her opponent off-balance. When she needed to dig deep, she was able to find the necessary gear to reach the third round in Paris for the first time with a 6-1, 6-4 win.
The serve was key for Andreescu, who only faced two break points in the match and lost just 12 total points on her own serve. She won exactly half of her opponent’s service points. The Canadian had 18 winners, the same number as Navarro had unforced errors.
Andreescu seemed to bring the confidence gained from her dramatic round-one win into the second-round clash with Navarro. She started pummeling the American right from the start and was rewarded with an early break.
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Navarro had no answer from Andreescu’s power and creativity in the early stages. Back-to-back errors in the third game made it a double break, which was more than enough for the Canadian to race through the first set with the loss of just three points on her own serve.
The American managed to prevent Andreescu from running away with the match, saving a break point with an ace in the second game of the second set. She then finally got into an Andreescu service game at 2-2 and the Canadian drove a backhand wide to surrender a break for the first time in the match.
However, Andreescu dug in and at 3-4, blasted a return to break back and level the set at four apiece.
That break seemed to permanently put the wind at the Canadian’s back. As Navarro served to stay in the match at 4-5, she could not close out the game despite leading 30-love with Andreescu forcing her into four consecutive errors to close out the match on a four-game run.
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Next up for Andreescu is Lesia Tsurenko. Tsurenko advanced the last time these two met earlier this year in Hua Hin when the Canadian retired in the second set.
Fernandez, Marino split doubles results
A day after seeing her singles campaign come to an end, Leylah Annie Fernandez extended her stay in Paris with a first-round doubles win alongside Taylor Townsend.
Fernandez and Townsend are the tenth seeds at Roland-Garros and defeated Sara Errani and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a former doubles partner of Fernandez, in straight sets 7-5, 7-6(3).
Both sets were back-and-forth affairs with the lead going back and forth, but it was the Canadian-American pair playing better at the business end. A break at 5-5 led them to take the opener while they turned on the jets late in the second, rallying from 2-5 down before closing out the match in a tiebreak.
Rebecca Marino was unable to join her compatriots Fernandez and Gabriela Dabrowski, who won her first-round doubles match on Wednesday, as she and Lin Zhu were broken at 5-5 in both sets, leading to a 7-5, 7-5 straight-set loss.
Dabrowski and Fernandez could face each other in the third round should both Canadians win their next matches.
