MONTREAL: Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek easily advanced to the third round of the National Bank Open, beating Guo Hanyu of China 6-3, 6-1.
Playing for the first time since routing Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the Wimbledon final for her sixth major, Swiatek raced to a 4-0 lead to push her games winning streak to 24.
“I think I played a really solid match,” Swiatek said. “Playing the first match on hard court after a pretty long break from the surface is always tricky, so I’m happy that I just focused on myself, adjusted to the conditions and played well.”
On Friday, the second-seeded Polish star will face Eva Lys of Germany, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia in a night match.
Two-time defending champion Jessica Pegula of the United States also advanced, topping Marie Sakkari of Greece 7-5, 6-4. Fifth-seeded Anisimova, also of the United States, beat Lulu Sun of New Zealand 6-4, 7-6 (5).
Sixth-seeded Madison Keys of the United States beat Germany’s Laura Siegemund 6-2, 6-1, and former top-ranked player Naomi Osaka of Japan rallied to edge Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3.
Meanwhile, towering Canadian Gabriel Diallo beat Matteo Gigante of Italy 6-3, 7-6 (5) to reach the third round of the National Bank Open.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander from Montreal finished off Gigante in 1 hour, 46 minutes in the rain-interrupted match.
Diallo saved two set points at 2-5 before breaking back and eventually forcing a tiebreaker. Gigante took a 5-3 lead, the dropped the last four points, double-faulting on match point.
“Tennis is sometimes pretty crazy with the momentum switches that you see throughout a match,” Diallo said.
Diallo won his first ATP Tour title last month in the Netherlands. He’ll face second-seeded Taylor Fritz of the United States, a 7-5, 7-6 (1) winner over Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain in a rain-delayed night match.
In other second-round matches, fourth-seeded American Ben Shelton beat French qualifier Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-3, and sixth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev topped Hugo Gaston of France 6-2, 6-3.