TORONTO – Canada is down to two hopefuls in the National Bank Open women’s singles draw.<\/p>\n
Marta Kostyuk recovered from a rocky start to defeat Toronto’s Katherine Sebov 7-6 (4), 6-0 in second-round action Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., opens her tournament as the No. 30 seed against Renata Zarazua on Wednesday, while wild-card entry Kayla Cross of London, Ont., will face No. 28 Ann Li after five other Canadians, including 2019 winner Bianca Andreescu, were eliminated in the first round.<\/p>\n
Sebov, also a wild card, was up 4-1 in the first set before Kostyuk battled back to 4-4. The Canadian was then on serve up 5-4, but her Ukrainian opponent responded to force a tiebreak at Sobeys Stadium.<\/p>\n
Coming off back-to-back Grand Slam semifinal appearances at the French Open and Wimbledon, the No. 10 seed flexed her muscles in the second set to secure a comfortable victory over Sebov, who sits 229th in the world.<\/p>\n
Other early action with seeded players advancing to the third round at the US$7.4-million event saw No. 7 seed Iga Swiatek cruise past Sara Bejlek 6-0, 6-3, No. 9 Elina Svitolina battle back to top Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-4, and No. 16 Ekaterina Alexandrova defeat Camila Osorio 6-3, 7-6 (4) on York University’s campus.<\/p>\n
Viktorija Golubic upset No. 31 Donna Vekic 5-7, 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka was set to open her tournament in the evening session in a second-round matchup with qualifier Moyuka Uchijima, who’s currently ranked 111th.<\/p>\n
No. 8 Amanda Anisimova was scheduled to play the late match on centre court, but advanced via walkover after the withdrawal of qualifier Lanlana Taraudee.<\/p>\n
DOUBLE TROUBLE<\/p>\n
Tournament organizers announced Venus Williams and Alexandra Eala have been awarded the final doubles main-draw wild card.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old Williams, who lost in first-round singles play, is a 14-time Grand Slam doubles champion, while 21-year-old Eala is ranked No. 20 in singles and just beat 2024 NBO winner Jessica Pegula in the D.C. Open final.<\/p>\n
“We know our fans will be incredibly excited to see Venus and Alexandra team up,” tournament director Karl Hale said in a statement. “Venus is a legend in our sport, while Alexandra’s popularity continues to soar, as does her level on the court.”<\/p>\n
Williams is also set to reunite with sister Serena in doubles at next week’s Cincinnati Open, their first tournament together since the 2022 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO – Canada is down to two hopefuls in the National Bank Open women’s singles draw. Marta Kostyuk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50318,17,50316,50317,49,50319,50321,50320,2731,41037,2934],"class_list":["post-155838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alexandra-eala","tag-canada","tag-katherine-sebov","tag-marta-kostyuk","tag-sports","tag-tennis-people","tag-tennis-segments","tag-tennis-tournaments","tag-tournament","tag-venus-williams","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}