Mississauga tennis star advances to third round at French Open for first time

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Published June 1, 2023 at 5:23 pm

Bianca Andreescu is now in uncharted territory of sorts as she fights to once again be included on the short list of the world’s best tennis players.

The 22-year-old Mississauga native, who’ll turn 23 in just over two weeks, won her second-round match at the French Open in Paris today (June 1) to advance to the third round of the Grand Slam event for the first time in her still young, but unsettled career.

Showing no letdown from her opening-round upset of Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) No. 18 Victoria Azarenka, 33, of Belarus (2-6, 6-3, 6-4), Andreescu cruised to a straight-set victory on Thursday over American Emma Navarro (WTA No. 75), winning 6-1, 6-4.

Reports from Paris note that Andreescu, WTA No. 42 entering play across the pond this week, used a strong serve to handily defeat her second-round opponent. When she’s on her game, historically, Andreescu more often than not features a near-unbeatable serve as a key part of her arsenal.

The top-ranked Canadian on the WTA circuit now takes on Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko (WTA No. 66) in Saturday’s third-round action.

Tsurenko, 33, knocked off WTA No. 13 Barbora Krejcikova (Czech Republic) in impressive fashion, 6-2, 6-4, in the opening round earlier this week.

Andreescu, meanwhile, is still recovering from two torn ligaments in her ankle suffered March 27 at the Miami Open.

She returned to action on April 28 at the Madrid Open in Spain just about a month after going down with the injury.

In Paris this week, she’s looking to improve now even more so on her 2022 French Open showing, when she was knocked out in the second round.

The ankle injury suffered during fourth-round action at the Miami Open did, at least temporarily, put the brakes on Andreescu’s journey back to what she hopes will be a place once again among the women’s tennis elite.

She had been showing recent signs of getting back into the top form that earned her a shocking U.S. Open win in 2019. She had climbed to No. 31 in WTA singles rankings prior to the Miami tournament, and then climbed briefly to No. 27.

That latter ranking is Andreescu’s highest since returning to the game after a lengthy layoff in which she didn’t compete at all in 2021.

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