Jennifer Brady might have returned recently, but she almost defeated one of the best players in the world, Elena Rybakina at the 2023 Canadian Open in Montreal.
It was actually in Canada a few weeks ago that Brady made her return to tennis at the Granby event of a lower WTA category, winning one match and losing the other. Granby is in Quebec, just like Montreal, and there are only about 40 miles between the cities.
A few weeks after that experience, Brady returned to the area and played some pretty darn good tennis, nearly stunning Elena Rybakina in the second round. Rybakina hasn't played since her Wimbledon loss, and the lack of matches was pretty evident, but she played better as the match went on and ultimately outlasted Brady in a very long match.
The opening set was a very interesting one, as Brady opened way better. She took an early break but couldn't hold it for long because Rybakina finally found her game and pulled it back. The match would, unfortunately, be suspended in the tiebreak with Brady leading at that moment 4-2.
Rybakina wasn't too pleased with the suspension but there is not much you can do against rain so they returned the following day and Brady finished it 7-3. After that, we saw both of them play rather fairly well without any chances on either side.
Both are tremendous hitters and we saw plenty of those rallies in the match with both players winning about an equal amount. There wasn't much separating them but Rybakina jumped out to a 5-4 lead with a chance to win the set but failed having to play another tiebreak. This time around she proved better taking it 7-5.
The final set had a lot of twists and turns as both players pushed to win the match but neither could use the chances they had. It was a really fierce battle and an incredibly close match with Rybakina eventually finding solutions.
The final score was 6-7(3), 7-6(5), 6-3 as the Kazakhstani player moves on to face Sloane Stephens after she advanced following the withdrawal from Victoria Azarenka.
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