Bianca Andreescu of Canada reacts after winning a point against Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic during their match on day three at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Wednesday, July 3, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth
LONDON – Canada’s Bianca Andreescu advanced to the third round at Wimbledon with a 6-3, 7-6 (5) win over 26th-seed Linda Noskova of Czechia on Wednesday.
Andreescu won on her first match point, scoring her 28th winner on a backhand.
The 24-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., scored the only break of the match early to go up 2-0 in the first set. She held serve throughout, successfully defending all five break points she faced.
On the men’s side, Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime failed to convert four match points before eventually losing his first-round match 4-6, 5-7, 7-6 (9), 6-4, 6-4 to Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Andreescu will next face seventh-seeded Italian Jasmine Paolini, the French Open runner-up, on Friday as she looks to advance past the third round at the All England Club for the first time.
The 2019 U.S. Open winner made her return at the French Open after missing nearly 10 months with a back injury, then opened the grass season with a runner-up performance at the Libema Open in the Netherlands.
Aliassime, seeded 17th at the All England Club, entered Wednesday leading his match after it was suspended early on the fourth set Tuesday due to darkness. But Kokkinakis had the momentum, and he capitalized.
Just before the suspension, Kokkinakis came out on top of a wild third-set tiebreaker. Auger-Aliassime came back from 5-0 down and had four match points, including two on serve, but couldn’t put the Australian away.
Kokkinakis took control of the fifth set when he scored a break to go up 4-3, coming back from a 40-15 deficit in the game. He held serve the rest of the way to complete the upset.
Auger-Aliassime, who reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2021, went out in the first round for a third straight time at the grass-court Grand Slam,
In women’s doubles action, the second-seeded team of Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand advanced to the second round with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Russians Anastasia Potapova and Mirra Andreeva.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face either Brazilians Beatriz Haddad Maia and Ingrid Martins or Russians Irina Khromacheva and Kamilla Rakhimova.
Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., and Japan’s Ena Shibahara also advanced with a 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 win over China’s Jiang Xinyu and Guo Hanyu.
Fernandez and Shibahara will next face 16th seeds Ingrid Neel of Estonia and Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri.
Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., was originally scheduled to face Germany’s Daniel Altmaier in men’s second-round action Wednesday, but the match was pushed back a day.
Fernandez is set to return to action Thursday when she faces former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in a women’s second-round match.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2024.
Note to readers: This is a corrected version. A previous version had Noskova spelt as Novoska.
