Bianca Andreescu reacts after defeating Daria Kasatkina at Sobeys Stadium in Toronto on Aug 9.Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
Bianca Andreescu willed her way to an exciting 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory over Daria Kasatkina in her opening round match at the National Bank Open on Tuesday.
Andreescu, of Mississauga, Ont., won this event in 2019 before taking the U.S. Open title in what was a breakout year for the 22-year-old.
She hasn’t won a tournament since, having battled through injuries and taking a “mental break” at one point in 2021.
Andreescu’s lone final appearance this year has been at the Bad Homburg Open where she fell to Caroline Garcia.
Andreescu will play Alizé Cornet of France in the second round.
Andreescu was sharp and active early on Tuesday, making comebacks within games she later won, and going 3-for-3 on break points through the first five games.
Up 3-2, she mixed up her shots, using forehands, backhands and drop shots, making the world No. 9 Kasatkina work. A Kasatkina error allowed Andreescu to have some breathing room with a 4-2 lead.
However, Kasatkina turned it up a notch, taking three of the next four games to tie it at 5-5, using a strong forehand flying out of Andreescu’s reach. Andreescu took a 6-5 lead in the following game.
After Kasatkina tied the set at 6-6, Andreescu scored six out the final eight points in the tiebreaker to win the set, capitalized by a powerful forehand. The set took 85 minutes to play.
In the second set, Andreescu jumped out to a strong start, outlasting Kasatkina through multiple lengthy exchanges as the Russian committed multiple errors, sending shots into the net.
Andreescu again began to mix it up between drop shots and forehands that Kasatkina struggled to return with accuracy at times, as the Canadian grabbed a 2-0 lead.
With the next two games going to Kasatkina, the following game also went to deuce with Andreescu giving up the advantage on an error, before Kasatkina nailed a forehand past her to go up 3-2.
After taking the next game with a forehand then error from Kasatkina, Andreescu was able to restore her lead at 4-3 with another impressive forehand that was just inside the baseline and sideline.
Andresscu won her third consecutive game on a deuce to go up 5-3, where she fired a forehand winner past Kasatkina who was visibly frustrated after.
With the home crowd behind her, as they had been many times on the night, Andreescu went up 40-0 in the clinching game before committing two errors. She then used another drop shot that Kasatkina could not run down.
Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka’s recent struggles continued with an early exit.
The four-time Grand Slam champion retired from her first-round match with a back injury. Osaka was losing 7-6 (4), 3-0 against Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi when she withdrew from the contest.
“I felt my back from the start of the match, and despite trying to push through it, I just wasn’t able to today,” Osaka said in a written statement. “I’d like to pay credit to Kaia for playing well and want to wish her all the best for the rest of the tournament.”
Entering the tournament, Osaka had been eliminated from her last three competitions in the first or second round, including a straight-sets loss to Coco Gauff at last week’s Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic.
That was her first competition since the French Open as she recovered from an Achilles injury.
Prior to that run, she had her best tournament of the year making it to the final of the Miami Open in early April before losing to world No. 1 Iga Swiatek.
The 31st-ranked Kanepi will next play No. 8 Garbine Muguruza of Spain.
Osaka struggled with unforced errors and had four of her five double faults in the first set.
Osaka won the first game with the help of three unforced errors from Kanepi, but the Japanese star lost her momentum after going up 2-1.
Kanepi won four of the next seven games to go up 5-3. From there, Osaka had to fight her way out of two set-point opportunities from Kanepi.
With a mix of a strong backhand and multiple errors from Kanepi, Osaka was able to tie it up and send the set to a tiebreaker.
With the tiebreaker tied 3-3, Kanepi turned up her level of play taking four of the next five points as Osaka handed her set point on a shot past the baseline.
Kanepi built on that momentum in the second set, taking advantage of Osaka’s mishaps and firing sharp forehands past the Japanese star.
After hitting her second ace of the match earlier in the final game, Kanepi closed out with a strong serve that Osaka returned high and wide.
Earlier in the day, Canada’s Rebecca Marino fell 6-3, 6-7 (5), 4-6 to Zheng Qinwen.
Marino, who made it into the WTA top 100 rankings for the first time since 2012 and is currently No. 96, got rolling early as she took the first set with relative ease.
The Vancouver native overcame a strong start from Zheng in the second set, but had trouble with unforced errors in the tiebreaker.
Marino went up 4-3 in the final set before losing the final three games.
Fellow Canadian Carol Zhao also dropped her first match, 6-1, 6-3 to American Amanda Anisimova.