World No. 1 Iga Swiatek eased into the last 16 of the Canadian Open by seeing off Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic.
Swiatek’s 6-1 6-2 victory owed much to the speed at which she came out of the blocks at the start of the match in Toronto, showing no signs of a hangover from her quarter-final loss at the recent Poland Open.
Tomljanovic fought to find a way back into it in the second set, but it was to no avail with the Pole one of the WTA Tour’s most impressive frontrunners for a reason.
After her dominant start to the year, Swiatek’s past six weeks have been less successful, seeing her 37-match unbeaten run come to an end in the Wimbledon third round with defeat to Alize Cornet, and then being knocked out in the Warsaw last eight by another Frenchwoman, Caroline Garcia.
However, in the first set against Tomljanovic it felt like business as usual for the Pole, steaming into a 5-0 lead as yet another of her opponents steeled themselves to receive the dreaded bagel from the rampant 21-year-old.
Tomljanovic avoided that fate by belatedly getting on the board, but Swiatek served out her next game to take it 6-1 after the Australian dragged a forehand wide.
Top seed Swiatek, who declared ahead of the tournament that she was seeking “improvement as well as winning”, motored on in the start of the second too – breaking in the first game – as Tomljanovic struggled to find the answers on the other side of the court.
The score was at least closer that it had been in the opener, but the gulf in class remained and from 2-2 Swiatek took four straight games to accelerate to her triumph, with Tomljanovic blasting long on the Pole’s first match point.
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, Coco Gauff also made it through to the last 16, but only after a near three-hour dogfight with Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina.
Gauff had three match points in the second-set tie-break only to spurn all of them, letting Rybakina force a third set, which, in an indication of how closely fought the encounter was, also went to a tie-break.
The deciding denouement, remarkably, saw the first seven points go against serve as both players showed signs of fatigue and nerves.
But Gauff – from 4-3 ahead – took the next three points to seal her win, which she celebrated with a roar to her camp and a big sigh of relief.
Gauff will play the winner of Aryna Sabalenka and Sara Sorribes Tormo in the round of 16, while Swiatek will face either Beatriz Haddad Maia or Leylah Fernandez.
