Photo : Sarah-Jade Champagne/Tennis Canada
One day of main draw play, one Canadian into the second round of the National Bank Championships as Katherine Sebov became the first player from the host country to advance in Granby.
Sebov pulled off an impressive comeback to claim her first career WTA Tour match win, rallying from a set down to defeat Xinyu Wang 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.
It did not look like it was going to be Sebov’s day when she immediately fell behind 4-0 to start the match, but reclaiming one of the breaks allowed her to keep Wang from running away with it.
After trading breaks to get to 3-all in the second set, it was the Canadian putting her foot on the gas, breaking serve again to kick off a sprint to the finish that saw her win nine of the last 10 games, including sweeping the final set, to book a meeting in round two with either ninth seed Daria Saville or Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Wimbledon semifinalist Tatjana Maria kicked off the 2022 National Bank Championships in Granby with a big win Sunday morning, beating Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska in just over 90 minutes.
The first match of the new WTA 250 event started off evenly, with the two women exchanging breaks twice in the opening set before the German broke serve to take the opening set.
From there, it was one-way traffic as Maria raced out to a 5-0 lead in the second set. Podoroska was able to hold to avoid the bagel, but the German was not to be denied as she closed out the 7-5, 6-1 victory with a hold to love.
Maria could meet fourth seed Anna Bondar in the second round.
Next up was Harriet Dart, who defeated Maryna Zanevska in straight sets to advance to round two.
Dart got off to a quick start, breaking serve to open the match and riding that lone break to take the opening set. She then had to rally from a break down in the second, winning five of the next six games to advance 6-4, 7-5.
