Andreescu Battles to Reach First Wimbledon Third Round

Bianca Andreescu is finding her best game on the grass at the most opportune time and her reward is a berth in the third round at Wimbledon for the first time in her career.

The 23-year-old Canadian, who was playing on consecutive days at the All-England Club because of all the rain earlier this week, posted a 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(7) victory over no. 26 seed Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine to reach round three for the second straight Grand Slam after reaching the same stage at Roland-Garros last month.

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It was the kind of Andreescu match we have become accustomed to with lots of ebbs and flows. She led 6-2, 4-3 with a break and appeared well on her way to a convincing victory, but Kalinina had other plans. She elevated her game at just the right time to overcome the deficit facing her to force a third set and managed to build a 5-2 lead in the final frame. That’s when Andreescu found another gear to start a comeback of her own. She broke when Kalinina served for the match and battled, as she always does, to a decisive third set 10-point tiebreak during which she built herself a comfortable 9-3 advantage and ultimately converted her fifth match point after her opponent hit a groundstroke into the net.

In the third round, Andreescu will face the winner of the match between sixth-seeded Ons Jabeur of Tunisia and Zhuoxuan Bai of China. It would be her second meeting with Jabeur after the pair first faced off in the third round of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers in Montreal two years ago.

Meanwhile, on the men’s side, Denis Shapovalov’s third-round contest against Brit Liam Broady is currently underway on Court 2. You can watch the match live on TSN and RDS.