World number two Elena Rybakina survived a major scare to reach the Canadian Open quarter-finals on Sunday in Toronto. The Kazakh star recovered from a 0-3 deficit and two breaks down in the final set to defeat Liudmila Samsonova 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
Rybakina is now set to face four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, who eliminated home favorite Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 6-4. Osaka broke in the seventh game of each set to advance in 82 minutes. “It was all pretty good for me,” the 13th-ranked Osaka said, praising Fernandez by noting, “She has a great attitude. She’s consistent and she will fight. She’s kind of like a bulldog.”
The Japanese star, who has never faced Rybakina, emphasized that sound groundstrokes were key to her performance. “When I feel comfortable or at least confident in myself knowing I can run things down, I loosen up a lot,” Osaka explained. “I need to be confident in myself, execute what I can and at the end of the day just try my best and whatever happens happens.”
Meanwhile, fourth-ranked Coco Gauff continued her dominant form, sweeping aside Russian teenage qualifier Alina Korneeva 6-3, 6-1. Gauff has not dropped a set in Canada and reached the last eight for the first time since 2023. “My main focus today was let me try and close it out,” Gauff said. “Probably not the way I should be thinking but it worked today.”
Reflecting on her progress, Gauff added, “I’m proud of how the last three matches have gone and just knowing if I have to go the distance I’m ready, but obviously would prefer to cut it short if I can.”
Gauff will next meet 14th-ranked Swiss Belinda Bencic, who secured a 6-4, 6-0 victory in 73 minutes over 20th-ranked Alexandra Eala, the Filipina who won her first WTA title last week in Washington. Bencic connected on 64.4% of her first serves and won 72.4% of those points.
This victory marked Bencic’s 10th consecutive win over left-handed opponents. “I hate to play against lefties so I’m surprised by this statistic,” Bencic admitted. “Very tricky. Maybe it helped me that I played a lefty the round before against Taylor Townsend. I got used to the serve a little bit. I wish I was a lefty too.”
