Leylah Fernandez will face a serious opponent on center court at the National Bank Open on Thursday night.
• Also read: Danielle Collins doesn’t hesitate to tell her opponent to shut up!
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• Also read: National Bank of Montreal Open: Leylah Annie Fernandez steals the show!
The Lavalloise meet Danielle Collins, who has had a very good week in Montreal so far. However, since Saturday there will be the fifth game in six days.
The 29-year-old American is currently 48th in the WTA rankings, but was 7th a year ago.
Her achievements include winning the San Jose and Palermo tournaments in 2021 and being a finalist at the Australian Open last year.
Note that this will be a first confrontation between the two players.
Qualified
Does the name Collins sound familiar to you? That’s entirely possible since she had another Quebecer’s head a few days ago.
It was she who defeated Eugenie Bouchard in three sets 6-1, 1-6 and 6-1 in the first qualifying round.
She almost went no further as her second qualifier against her compatriot Emina Bektas was much more complicated as the result of 7-5, 6(10)-7 and 7-5 shows.
In the first round of the main draw, she beat Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, 26th player in the world and semi-finalist at Wimbledon, in two identical sets 6-2.
On Wednesday evening she defeated the eighth racket in the world, the Greek Maria Sakkari, who was a finalist in Washington a few days ago, in straight sets 6-4 and 6-2.
character
We also have to talk about this game as Collins showed a lot of character.
Leading 6-4 and 2-1, Sakkari was beginning to get frustrated. After a missed serve, the Greek knocked the ball down and it landed in the crowd.
Although Sakkari apologized, Collins made sure the referee saw what had just happened.
Sakkari defended that she hit the ball on the ground and nobody was hit. Collins didn’t want to hear anything.
“Shut up, shut up,” retorted Collins, who insisted his opponent almost hit someone with the ball.