Bianca Andrescu
Canada’s Bianca Andreescu advanced to her first quarterfinal of the tennis season Wednesday with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Yue Yuan in second-round action at the Libema Open.
Andreescu hit 22 winners to 19 unforced errors and saved five of six break points in the win over the sixth seed from China.
The 23-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., put the match away when Yuan’s return of Andreescu’s match-point serve went long.
Andreescu is playing in her second event of the year. She returned at the French Open after sustaining a back injury at the National Bank Open in Montreal last August.
“Quarterfinals sounds really nice so I’m very happy,” Andreescu told WTA Insider after the match. “I don’t want to get too excited, not focusing too much on the good things or the bad things and attaching myself too much. I just want to take it as it is.”
She will next face former No. 1 Naomi Osaka of Japan on Friday at the grass-court WTA 250 event in s’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. The two have met just once before, with Osaka coming back from a set down to win their quarterfinal match at the 2019 China Open.
That result ended Andreescu’s 16-match winning streak that included Canadian Open and U.S. Open titles.
“I remember and I know this for a fact, that (Andreescu is) a great player,” Osaka said. “It feels really cool that we’re playing again this year. I know we’re both trying to come back and we’re almost kind of back, so this is really fun.
“I anticipate a really difficult match. She’s a player, to me, who’s really fun to play against because she can change anything in the match, like her play style or where she stands.”
In other grass-court action Wednesday, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski made a return from injury and paired with New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe for a decisive 6-1, 6-0 win over British tandem Alicia Barnett and Freya Christie in first-round doubles action at the Rothesay Open in Nottingham, England.
Dabrowski and Routliffe saved all six break points they faced, while breaking their opponents five times on six chances.
The top seeds will next face the British duo of Naiktha Bains and Maia Lumsden on Thursday.
Later Wednesday, Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino fell 6-3, 6-3 to defending champion Katie Boulter in second-round women’s singles action at Nottingham.
Boulter picked up three of her four breaks in the second set.
Also Thursday, Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., faces Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut in second-round action at s’Hertogenbosch, while Denis Shapovalov takes on Italy’s Matteo Berrettini in second-round action at the Stuttgart Open in Germany.
