Canadian hopes on the WTA Tour, Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez, made it through to the second round at the 2024 Japan Open in Tokyo.
Andreescu struggled a lot in recent weeks. After the Paris Olympics, where she won her first-round match against Clara Tauson before losing to Donna Vekic, the Canadian lost five consecutive matches.
Surprisingly, this came during the last hard-court part of the season. It's the part of the season during which she excelled in the past, having won the Canadian Open and the US Open.
This year, however, her fortunes were completely different. First, she lost in the first round of the Canadian Open to Lesia Tsurenko before losing in the first round of the Cincinnati Open to Elina Avanesyan and then in the first round of the US Open to Jasmine Paolini.
Her first-round loss at the Japan Championships in Osaka to Greet Minnen was her fifth in a row, but she finally stopped that streak in the first round of the 2024 Japan Open in Tokyo.
The former US Open champion received a wild card for the tournament, and her first-round opponent was a home player, Mei Yamaguchi, who is the World No. 410 and made it into the main draw through the qualifying.
Andreescu didn't start the match well, falling behind 1-3. However, she was quickly able to erase the deficit and make it 3-3 before wasting three break points to go into a one-break lead.
Still, that didn't have to bother her as she had a superb end of the set, winning 12 of the last 16 points to win the first set 7-5.
In the first set, Andreescu kept applying pressure at her opponent, but it was still closer than she would have probably liked. Still, she was the better player, and that's why she was able to record a straight-sets win, 7-5, 6-3, to set up a second-round clash with the second-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Andreescu wasn't the only Canadian celebrating a first-round win in Tokyo. Her compatriot, Leylah Fernandez, took on lucky loser Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the first round of the tournament.
Sasnovich's way into the main draw was quite unique, as she withdrew from her final qualifying match but still made it to the main draw as the lucky loser. However, in her first-round match, she bizarrely retired just one game away from the loss.
The Belarusian was the better player in the opening set of the match, which she was able to win 7-5. However, in the remainder of the match, it was Fernandez who dominated.
The Canadian player won the second set 6-2, and she led 5-2 in the third set before Sasnovich chose to retire from the match to send her opponent into the second round of the tournament.
Fernandez, who was on a four-match losing streak at the start of the Asian swing, will now hope to follow up on this win. In the second round, she will play against Varvara Gracheva, who represents France.
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