With rain pouring down in Ottawa, last night’s matches were played under the dome as the Women’s Draw opened up and the 2nd round of the Open Draw came to a conclusion.
Match of the evening took place at 6:00 PM as #3 seed Huiping Zhang took on new entrant this year Silvie Joly. Both players were familiar with each other’s styles and it showed on the court. The first set alone took over one hour to complete as Silvie Joly by the narrowest of margins won 7-5. In the 2nd set, Huiping bounced back, jumping out to an early lead and never looked back, evening the match at one set a piece, winning 6-1. In the final set, it was another very close contest. To the spectators in attendance, it did not look like they had been out on the courts for an extended period of time as rallies were grueling and the groundstrokes were fierce. In the end, one break separated the two players, and as the final shot landed long, Huiping raised her fist emerging victorious, having won the match in 3 hours and 2 minutes, 5-7, 6-1, 6-4!
Another opening round Women’s Draw went three sets as well in the early batch of matches as Jane Yang and #4 Alisha Awadia dueled for just over two hours. Jane jumped to a one set lead, winning 6-0. Alisha would fight back though and take the 2nd set 6-4. The third set provided some great rallies between the two players. Unlike last year’s three set disappointment for Jane, this year she was triumphant, defeating Alisha 6-0, 4-6, 6-3.
Here are the full results from last night’s matches:
- Jane Yang defeated #4 Alisha Awadia (Women’s 1st Round)
- #3 Huiping Zhang defeated Silvie Joly (Women’s 1st Round)
- #3 Ken Li defeated Loni Bytygi (Open 2nd Round)
- #1 Sheila Windle defeated Anna Beben (Women’s 1st Round)
- #9 Tarek Samhan defeated Galen Weaver (Open 2nd Round)
- Jonathan Suen defeated Li Yu (Open 2nd Round)
Tonight’s matches will be at the Barrhaven Tennis Club as we finish the Opening Round of the Women’s Draw, begin the Open Draw Round of 16 and add a few Consolation Matches as well. Below is the schedule:
6:00 PM:
- #8 Andrew Rowe vs #12 Scott Ventureyra (Open 3rd Round)
- Demyan Plakhov vs Petrica Martinas (Open B-Side 2nd Round)
- Jun Subad vs Frank Zhang (Open B-Side Quarter-Finals)
8:00 PM:
- #2 Austin Flannigan vs #16 Albert Wong (Open 3rd Round)
- #2 Alana Gibson vs Becky Hawkes (Women’s 1st Round)
- #9 Tarek Samhan vs John Payette (Open 3rd Round)
- #15 Jin Xu vs Risto Gostimirovic (Open B-Side 2nd Round)
As we get closer and closer to the Final Four for both draws, the matchups are sure to continue to impress so we hope you can come down to watch some great matches!
Patrick LeBlanc
Tournament Coordinator