Top seeds Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff advance to Toronto QFs
- Gauff became the second player to reach 25 Tier 1/WTA 1000 quarterfinals before her 23rd birthday
At 22 years of age, Coco Gauff is building an incredible resume.
The fourth-seeded Floridian routed Russian teenager Alina Korneeva 6-3, 6-1 on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals of the National Bank Open in Toronto.
In the first match of the day, second-seeded Elena Rybankina of Kazakhstan outlasted Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova in a marathon, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
Gauff became the second player to reach 25 Tier 1/WTA 1000 quarterfinals before her 23rd birthday.
Martina Hingis, who like Gauff was producing victories in her teens, made 39 quarters in the 1990’s.
Gauff lost her serve to open the match, but broke right back and won three of Korneeva’s four service games in the opening set.
It was more of the same in the second set, but this time, Gauff won all four of her opponent’s service games.
For the match, Gauff won 42 of 68 (61.8%) return points.
The Rybakina-Samsonova match took nearly three hours with 217 points played. Rybakina dominated the serving statistics, but still had to face break point 13 times in the match. She managed to hold off Samsonova seven times, while breaking on 7 of 17 of her chances. In a wild deciding set, Rybakina trailed 3-0 before storming back to win four consecutive games.
After both players held, Rybakina made quick work of her opponent’s service game, winning all four points to advance to her fifth WTA 1000 quarterfinal appearance of 2026.
“I knew it would be a very tough match. It’s always a battle against Liudmila,” Rybakina said on-court after the match.
“It’s really tough to find words now… I’m so tired, but I’m super happy. I was just trying to focus a point at a time. “I know she’s also an aggressive player. If I don’t step in, she might be the first one.
I’m super happy to be in the next round.“
In the late matches, No. 11 Naomi Osaka of Japan eliminated No. 30 Leylah Fernandez of Canada, 6-4, 6-4, and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, the No. 12 seed, ousted rising Philippine sensation No. 25 Alexandra Eala 6-4, 6-0. Osaka had the edge on Fernandez in aces (7-1) and won 76.3% of her first serves (29 of 38) to 60% (21 of 35) for her opponent in the match lasting one hour, 22 minutes.
Bencic converted 6 of 10 break-point opportunities while Eala was 2 of 4 in their match (1:13).
Comments