Since her historic triumph at the US Open on September 7, Bianca Andreescu has been requested everywhere, but the time had come for the Ontario native to return to the tennis courts as she came back to the competition at the China Open. Despite being the world's No. 6 and fifth seed of the tournament, Bianca didn't benefit a favorable draw in this last Premier Mandatory of the season. In the first round, the 19-year-old Canadian sensation had to face Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus. This was the first meeting between the two players. No doubt about that, Andreescu will be named the most improved player on the WTA Tour by the end of the year and she has had a shaky start, slightly rusty, offering a 2-0* lead to her opponent. However, Andreescu quickly bounced back to win the next six games and wins the first set with a convincing 6-2.
The scenario was similar in the second set. Sasnovich again took the lead 2-0* before Bianca leveled up at 2-all. However, unlike the first set, the 19-year-old Canadian was unable to maintain her high level of play, accumulating the double faults and offered several break points to her opponent, letting the second set slip through with an identical score of 6-2.
Before this tournament in Beijing, Bibi had won each of her thirteen matches since the Rogers Cup, as well as her last 12 duels that required a third set. The Mississauga, Ont., native continued these streaks as she won after a 1-hour, 54-minute duel with a score of 6-2, 2-6, 6-1.
In her next match, Andreescu will face, in a rematch of the US Open's quarterfinals, the Belgian Elise Mertens. En route to her first Grand Slam title, Andreescu had the last word by the score of 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to reach the final four.
Andreescu and Dabrowski qualified for WTA finals A few hours before last night's match, the WTA announced that Bianca Andreescu and her countrywoman, doubles' specialist Gabriela Dabrowski, were both qualified for the WTA Finals to be held in Shenzhen, China, from October 27th to November 3rd.
Dabrowski and her partner, China's Yifan Xu, also won their first-round match last night with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Croatia's Darija Jurak and Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
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