WTA Toronto: Belinda Bencic wins a duel with Serena Williams
The Swiss number one Belinda Bencic defeated the Czech Tereza Martincova in round one at the WTA Tour 1000 event in Toronto and now meets US superstar Serena Williams .
by Stefan Bergmann
last edit: Aug 10, 2022, 10:16 am
Yesterday there was a hurricane rushing through the (sports) leaf forest: Serena Williams is expected to end her active tennis career after this year's US Open, or as she likes to call it, "develop away from tennis and towards other things". In this context, every outstanding tennis encounter of the 23-time Grand Slam winner is of particular importance.
The next game of the 40-year-old American will take place tomorrow night - rather not before 1:00 a.m. (CEST) on the Center Court of the WTA Tour 1000 event in Toronto. The younger of the two Williams sisters meets Belinda Bencic. The Swiss, who won the tournament in North America in 2015, clearly defeated the Czech qualifier Tereza Martincova 6: 4, 6: 2 at the start of the hard court event, which is worth almost 2.7 million US dollars.
Kasatkina failed at Andreescu
In the direct head-to-head of the two players, the ex-world number one leads 2-1. While Williams was successful on clay in Madrid in 2014 and at the Australian Open in 2017, Bencic was able to win her only success in Toronto in 2015 against the powerful woman from California.
Other interesting results from Tuesday (local time): The Greek Maria Sakkari, who was seeded third in Canada, defeated the American Sloane Stephens 6: 2, 4: 6, 6: 2 and is already in the round of 16. There she will now face either Amanda Anisimova (USA) or the Czech Karolina Pliskova. Out is last week's San Jose winner Daria Kasatkina, who lost to local hero and 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu 6: 7 (5), 4: 6.