Leylah Fernandez of Canada plays a forehand against Liudmila Samsonova in their first-round women's singles match during the Qatar TotalEnergies Open, part of the Hologic WTA Tour at Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex on Feb. 12 in Doha, Qatar.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Fernandez wins in singles and doubles in Qatar Open
Doha, Qatar Canada’s Leylah Fernandez picked up a pair of wins Monday at the Qatar Open women’s tennis tournament.
Fernandez, from Laval, Que., advanced to the second round of the singles draw with a 7-5, 7-6 (4) win over 12th seed Liudmila Samsonova of Russia. She then teamed with Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia for a 6-4, 3-6, 13-11 win over Italian duo Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani in the opening round of doubles. It was the first victory of their partnership.
Fernandez scored an early break in the second set against Samsonova and appeared to be on the verge of victory with a 5-2 lead.
Samsonova answered that break to cut the lead to 5-4 and eventually forced a tiebreaker.
Fernandez regained control in the extra session and won on her first match point chance when Samsonova hit Fernandez’s service return long, ending the match in 2 hours 10 minutes.
Fernandez evened her career record against Samsonova at 1-1. The Russian was victorious in their first meeting in the second round of the 2022 U.S. Open.
Next up for Fernandez in singles is wild-card Paula Badosa of Spain. Fernandez and Kalashnikova will next face the top-seeded team of Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan.
Raonic serves up a first-round win in Netherlands
Rotterdam, The Netherlands Milos Raonic’s powerful serve was in full effect Monday as the Canadian veteran defeated Jesper De Jong of the Netherlands 7-6 (5), 6-4 in first-round play at the ABN Amro Open tennis tournament. Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., fired 20 aces and won 97 per cent of first-serve points in his first win of the season.
Raonic will next face the winner of the match between eighth-seed Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan and Croatian veteran Borna Coric.
Also Monday in Rotterdam, Félix Auger-Aliassime of Montreal battled for 2 hours 21 minutes to edge hardy American qualifier Maxime Cressy 7-6 (3), 7-6 (8). He advanced to play the winner of a match between second-seeded Andrey Rublev of Russia and qualifier Zizou Bergs of Belgium.