Leylah Fernandez tops Poland’s Magda Linette in 1st round of French Open | CBC Sports

Canada’s Leylah Fernandez advanced to the second round of the French Open on Sunday, beating Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, in a first-round match in Paris.

Fernandez now leads the head-to-head 2-1, having also beaten Linette in three sets in the first round of Roland-Garros back in 2020. Fernandez entered the tournament ranked 49th in the WTA rankings, while Linette was ranked 21st.

The 20-year-old from Laval, Que., overcame some difficulties with her serve, including issues with her ball toss, to secure the victory. She committed nine double faults and only hit two aces throughout the match.

But she managed to create 13 breakpoint opportunities and converted three, including one late in the third set to give her a 5-3 lead.

WATCH | Fernandez takes down Linette:

Canada’s Fernandez advances to 2nd round at French Open with win over Poland’s Linette

Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., defeats 21st seed Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 on the opening day of the French Open.

In the first set, Fernandez quickly found herself trailing when Linette broke her serve in the third game and took a 2-1 lead. Fernandez responded by breaking Linette’s serve twice to take the set.

Fernandez also had a poor start to the second set, conceding the first three games en route to losing the set.

In the deciding set, Fernandez committed only one double fault and won 12 out of 15 second-serve points.

Fernandez, who reached the French Open quarterfinals last year, is scheduled to play Denmark’s Clara Tauson in the next round. Tauson beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 6-2, 6-0, in the first round.

Three Canadians are in action on Monday. Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime plays Italian Fabio Fognini, Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., faces American Brandon Nakashima, and Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino takes on Russia’s Diana Shnaider.

Toronto’s Bianca Andreescu is set to open her tournament on Tuesday against Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.

Crowd boos Ukraine’s Kostyuk

Unable to sleep the night before her first-round match at the French Open against Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the Grand Slam tournament’s No. 2 seed, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, checked her phone at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw disturbing news back home in Kyiv.

At least one person was killed when the capital of Kostyuk’s country was subjected to the largest drone attack by Russia since the start of its war, launched with an invasion assisted by Belarus in February 2022.

“It’s something I cannot describe, probably. I try to put my emotions aside any time I go out on court. I think I’m better than before, and I don’t think it affects me as much on a daily basis, but yeah, it’s just — I don’t know,” Kostyuk said, shaking her head. “There is not much to say, really. It’s just part of my life.”

That, then, is why Kostyuk has decided she will not exchange the usual post-match pleasantries with opponents from Russia or Belarus. And that is why she avoided a handshake — avoided any eye contact, even — after losing to Australian Open champion Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 on Day 1 at Roland Garros.

What surprised the 20-year-old, 39th-ranked Kostyuk on Sunday was the reaction she received from the spectators in Court Philippe Chatrier: They loudly booed and derisively whistled at her as she walked directly over to acknowledge the chair umpire instead of congratulating the winner after the lopsided result. The negative response grew louder as she gathered her belongings and walked off the court toward the locker room.

“I have to say,” Kostyuk said, “I didn’t expect it. … People should be, honestly, embarrassed.”

Kostyuk is based now in Monaco, and her mother and sister are there, too, but her father and grandfather are still in Kyiv. Perhaps the fans on hand at the clay-court event’s main stadium were unaware of the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow usual tennis etiquette.

Initially, Sabalenka, who had approached the net as if anticipating some sort of exchange with Kostyuk, thought all of that noise was directed at her.

“At first, I thought they were booing me,” Sabalenka said. “I was a little confused, and I was, like, ‘OK, what should I do?”

Sabalenka tried to ask the chair umpire what was going on. She looked up at her entourage in the stands, too. Then she realized that while she is aware Kostyuk and other Ukrainian tennis players have been declining to greet foes from Russia or Belarus after a match, the spectators might not have known — and so responded in a way Sabalenka didn’t think was deserved.

“They saw it,” she surmised, “as disrespect [for] me.”

No. 7 Sakkari falls to 42nd-ranked Muchova

All in all, if the tennis itself was not particularly memorable, the whole scene, including the lack of the customary pre-match photo of the players following the coin toss, became the most noteworthy development on Day 1 in Paris.

In other action:

• The highest-seeded player to go home was No. 7 Maria Sakkari, who lost 7-6 (5), 7-5 to 42nd-ranked Karolina Muchova in what wasn’t necessarily that momentous of an upset. Both have been major semifinalists, and Muchova has won her past four Slam matches against players ranked in the top 10, including beating Sakkari at the French Open last year. No. 29 Zhang Shuai was eliminated by Magdalena Fręch.
• The first seeded man to bow out was No. 20 Dan Evans, eliminated 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 by wild-card entry Thanasi Kokkinakis.
• No. 11 Karen Khachanov, a semifinalist at the past two majors, came all the way back after dropping the opening two sets to beat Constant Lestienne, a French player once banned for gambling, by a 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 score in front of a boisterous crowd at Court Suzanne Lenglen.
• Two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas came within a point of being forced to a fifth set, too, but got past Jiri Vesely 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7).
• No. 24 Sebastian Korda, who missed three months after hurting his wrist at the Australian Open, was a straight-set winner in an all-American matchup against Mackenzie McDonald, the last player to face — and beat — Rafael Nadal. The 14-time French Open champion has been sidelined with a hip injury since that match in January.

Sabalenka called the whole experience “emotionally tough” — because of mundane, tennis-related reasons, such as the nerves that come with any first-round match, but more significantly because of the unusual circumstances involving the war.

“You’re playing against [a] Ukrainian and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know how people will — will they support you or not?” explained Sabalenka, who went down an early break and trailed 3-2 before reeling off six consecutive games with powerful first-strike hitting. “I was worried, like, people will be against me, and I don’t like to play when people [are] so much against me.”

A journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka what her message to the world is with regard to the war, particularly in this context: She can overtake Iga Swiatek at No. 1 in the rankings based on results over the next two weeks and, therefore, serves as a role model.

“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody — normal people — will never support it. Why [do] we have to go loud and say those things? This is like: One plus one [is] two.’ Of course we don’t support war,” Sabalenka said. “If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it. But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.”

When a portion of those comments were read to Kostyuk by a reporter, she responded in calm, measured tones that she doesn’t get why Sabalenka does not come out and say that “she personally doesn’t support this war.”

Kostyuk also rejected the notion that players from Russia or Belarus could be in a tough spot upon returning to those countries if they were to speak out about what is happening in Ukraine.

“I don’t know why it’s a difficult situation,” Kostyuk said with a chuckle.

“I don’t know what other players are afraid of,” she said. “I go back to Ukraine, where I can die any second from drones or missiles or whatever it is.”