Belinda Bencic squandered five match points in a second-set tiebreaker but regrouped to beat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez in three sets on Monday in the first round of the Guadalajara (Mexico) Open Akron.
Bencic, a Swiss player seeded 10th, prevailed 7-5, 6-7 (10), 6-3 against Fernandez, who reached the 2021 U.S. Open final.
Fernandez shook off Bencic’s five chances to close the match, claiming the middle-set tiebreaker on her second set point. The players exchanged service breaks early in the third set before Bencic broke again for a 4-2 lead and ultimately held on for the win.
Bencic finished with sizeable edges in both aces (7-2) and double faults (13-8).
Columbia’s Camila Osorio upset 15th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (8), but 16th-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic won her opener 6-3, 7-5 over the United States’ Bernarda Pera.
Other first-round winners included Belarus’ Victoria Azarenka, Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova, China’s Lin Zhu, Canada’s Rebecca Marino and Bianca Andreescu, Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk, Belgium’s Elise Mertens and the United States’ Sloane Stephens.
In the final match of the night, Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic was due to oppose Mexico’s Fernanda Contreras Gomez.
–Field Level Media