WTA: Bianca Andreescu and Eugenie Bouchard suffered elimination in Madrid

MADRID — Playing her first game since suffering an ankle injury last month, Ontario’s Bianca Andreescu lost 6-3, 6-7, 2-6 to China’s Wang Xiyu in the second round. Friday, at the Madrid tournament on clay.

However, the match had started in an ideal way for Andreescu, who even secured a 6-3, 3-0 lead over her rival.

Xiyu, 65th ranked player in the world, however, held on and took advantage of the Canadian’s relaxation, forcing a tiebreaker which she won by 7/5.

This marathon duel finally lasted 2 hours 50 minutes, and ended at 0:29 am local time.

Andreescu injured her ankle in her Miami Open fourth round match on March 27 against Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova.

This injury forced Andreescu to skip the duel between Canada and Belgium in the Billie-Jean-King Cup two weeks ago in Vancouver.

The former No. 4 in the WTA rankings is now preparing to participate in another caliber 1000 tournament, that of Rome, which will be played from May 9 to 20.

Bouchard falls in front of Trevisan

Earlier Friday, Quebec’s Eugenie Bouchard lost in straight sets 6-2, 7-5 to Italy’s Martina Trevisan in the second round.

Facing the holder of the 20th rank in the WTA rankings, Bouchard registered three service breaks in as many attempts, but was also the victim of six breaks, three in each of the two ends, in 10 attempts.

The last of those breaks came in the 11th game of the second set, giving Trevisan a 6-5 lead. The Italian secured victory a game later, on her third match point.

In the opening set, Bouchard quickly found herself facing a 0-4 deficit. She obtained her first break of the match in the sixth game before suffering the same fate in the next game.

Neither player was able to win on serve. Trevisan won 57 percent of the points after placing their first ball in play, compared to 54 percent for Bouchard.

The latter, however, caused a lot of damage by winning only 28 percent of the points when she had to use her second serve. Trevisan was significantly more effective, with a rate of 60 percent.

Coming from qualifying and ranked 285th in the world, Bouchard earned her ticket to the second round with a three-set victory of 6-7 (6), 6-2, 6-2 against Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska on Wednesday. Trevisan automatically qualified in the second round as the 18th seed.

Also on Friday, while waiting to play their first singles match, Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov formed a tandem and defeated Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2) in the first round. of the male double.

Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov will open their singles tournament on Saturday against Serbia’s Dusan Lajovic and China’s Zhizhen Zhang, respectively, in second-round matches.

Seeded seventh and 21st in the men’s singles draw, Auger-Aliassime and Shapovalov earned byes straight to the second round

Meanwhile, Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani advanced to the first round of women’s doubles with a 4-6, 6-2 (10-7) victory over the duo of American Sofia Kenin and Polish Magda Linette.