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It’s been a busy week with the Canadian Open in Toronto finishing and then the beginning of the Cincinnati Open, two important WTA 1000 events leading up to the U.S. Open. Currently, there’s a tight race for the No. 1 ranking between Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina and then out of nowhere, former No. 1 Iga Świątek is finding some form that helped break a title drought.
Let’s get right into it.
Toronto: Świątek wins first title in 11 months
The Canadian Open’s new 12-day format meant the second week was where the tournament actually revealed itself, and it did so by stripping away the top of the draw fast. No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka was surprsingly knocked out by the fourth round, undone by No. 19 Ekaterina Alexandrova in three sets. Jessica Pegula fell in the same round to Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Victoria Mboko never got the chance to defend, sidelined by a knee injury before the draw was even made.
Into that vacuum stepped Świątek, seeded seventh and playing her best tennis since last year’s Wimbledon run. She survived a scare from Marta Kostyuk in the round of 16, dropping the first set before storming back 3-6,6-1,6-2, then dispatched Shnaider in just 64 minutes to reach her first Toronto semifinal since 2023. Waiting there was Elina Svitolina, the 2017 champion, who’d delivered one of the week’s most charged wins in a gutting 3-6,6-0,6-3 turnaround over Russia’s Alexandrova in front of a raucous, flag-waving Ukrainian contingent.
The Świątek–Svitolina semifinal swung on a single hold. Świątek raced out to a 4-0 lead, lost the second set 1-6 as Svitolina found her range, then broke to love for a 5-3 third-set lead before closing it out 6-3,1-6,6-3 in just over two hours. On the other side, Elena Rybakina survived an even later finish, rallying past Coco Gauff 5-7,6-2,6-2 in a rain-delayed match that didn’t wrap until nearly 1 a.m. It’s worth noting that it was Rybakina’s fourth three-set battle of the week.
That set up a final between two players who’d split their previous dozen meetings, and this one wasn’t close. Świątek was in total control from the start, breaking early and often to win 6-2,6-3 in just under an hour and a half. It was her 12th WTA 1000 title and 26th overall, and it lifted her back into the top five, while Rybakina’s runner-up finish kept her within touching distance of the No. 1 ranking Sabalenka has held since her early exit.
Notably, both singles finalists needed marathon semifinals to get there, and it showed how wide open the back half of the draw had become once the top seeds started dropping.
Cincinnati: a calm first week before the real business starts
There was barely a weekend between the two events. The Cincinnati Open, the last WTA 1000 stop before the U.S. Open, opened its main draw on Friday with all 32 seeds sitting on byes and the results have already reshaped a few storylines.
The headline scalp of the opening round belonged to Emiliana Arango, who needed just 65 minutes to send 45-year-old Venus Williams out in the first round, 6-2,6-2. Naomi Osaka withdrew from the event entirely, citing fatigue after her deep Toronto run, while second-round retirements and upsets have already claimed six seeds: Elise Mertens, Barbora Krejčíková, Anastasia Potapova, Jeļena Ostapenko, Leylah Fernandez and Donna Vekić all exited in round two. Belinda Bencic, still managing the hip issue that ended her Toronto week early, retired mid-match in the second round as well.
The top of the draw, though, has largely held. Sabalenka needed a tiebreak to shake off a spirited Talia Gibson, winning 6-2,7-6(2) despite failing to convert five match points on serve before closing it out for her 24th straight opening-match win at tour level. She next faces Wang Xinyu. Rybakina looked sharp in her start following a tiring Toronto, first a 6-3,6-4 win over Taylor Townsend followed by a grinding 6-4,7-6(2) win over Magdalena Fręch. Świątek has picked up right where she left off, blitzing Arango herself before besting Maria Sakkari in a three-setter that ended with two breadsticks in the Pole’s favor.
Elsewhere, Pegula (6-2,6-3 over Simona Waltert), Wimbledon champion Linda Nosková (6-3,6-3 over Katie Boulter) and Roland Garros champion Mirra Andreeva (a lopsided 6-1,6-0 over Oleksandra Oliynykova) all advanced comfortably, while Gauff and Amanda Anisimova likewise moved through their openers with the loss of five games or fewer.
The subplot running underneath all of it is the No. 1 race: Sabalenka needs only to reach the Cincinnati quarterfinals to keep her grip on top spot regardless of what Rybakina does, but if she falls short, Rybakina can leapfrog her with a run to the final. With third-round matches now underway and the seeds mostly still standing, that particular drama is just getting started. I don’t think Rybakina will claim the No. 1 ranking in Cincinnati, but the odds of her grabbing it in New York are, to me, pretty high. She’s already taken over the WTA Race to Indian Wells, too, so she’s making waves.
Now, on to links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
Kateřina Siniaková and Zhang Shuai did what they do best: winning without their regular partners. They teamed up to take Toronto with a win over Sara Errani and Nicole Melichar-Martinez.
If the WTA Finals were to happen this week, this is where things would stand.
Jessica Pegula is chairing the WTA’s new Architecture Council and the first order of business is apparently cutting the required amount of WTA 500 tournaments top players are required to play.
Georgia Tech grad Carol Lee, who originally hails from the Northern Mariana Islands but represents the United States now, claimed a U.S. Open wildcard due to her results on the hardcourts in Europe this summer:
Thea Frodin will also be in New York with a main draw wildcard after taking the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 18s National Championships.
Sara Bejlek, Maja Chwalińska and Janice Tjen won their Cincinnati debuts and are still getting adjusted to being among the world’s top players.
Peyton Stearns opened up about playing in front of her hometown tournament in Cincinnati, which has also been a taste of home for many players during their stay.
Check out some of the best quotes from Media Day at the Cincinnati Open last week.
Lulu Sun announced that she will be stepping away from the tour and taking a mental break. I applaud her for doing so, but she’s another player needing time off. Is there something that can be done to avoid an uptick in player sabbaticals?
Katie Rolls, an incoming sophomore at the University of Virginia, won the ITA National Summer Championship which awarded $3,000 and a USTA Pro Circuit wildcard.
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Five at The IX: Toronto Week 2
Q. You have a 26-5 record in finals now. Wondering what allows you to play your best tennis when it matters most.
IGA ŚWIĄTEK: Well, I don’t really know because I try to approach these matches, the last match as the same as the ones before. I know what I did right. I’m just trying to continue that.
I guess if I’m in the final it means that my game is good, and that gives me confidence, for sure. It means also that I play, like, some matches, some were probably tough, some were not. So I know, I just know what to do, I’m already in the rhythm, and I guess the focus, and not letting your head go to places where it can distract you to be in the final, you know, and you can feel the pressure.
You know you need to go all in if you want to win the tournament because you’re going to face the best player in the final. So just trying to focus on that.
Obviously sometimes it’s impossible. Sometimes there are finals or other matches where it’s just hard to handle. But you need to always try. So I’m happy that most of times it went good for me.
Q. You both went through this tournament without dropping a single set. What worked so well for you throughout your time here in Toronto?
KATEŘINA SINIAKOVÁ: Yeah, this is very unique. And it’s very great, actually, because in super tiebreak you never know what can happen. Anything can happen.
So I think we showed that we really played our tennis. We were really aggressive. We felt maybe not every time the greatest, but we felt really good on the court.
As Shuai said, we were trying to improve every day with good practices. I just felt like we were doing the right things, and it really suits the game. So, yeah I’m really happy that we could win the title like this.
SHUAI ZHANG: We play many great players. I don’t know how many Grand Slam champions, singles, doubles, mixed, this week. Yeah, some good singles players, some doubles players.
That’s the big challenge for us, because every match we have to adjust to not the same thing. So we did a really great job. One day we play like this, and one day we play like that. So we play really, really good week.
Q. The gap in the rankings between you and Aryna Sabalenka is really quite close right now. I know you’ve mentioned that you don’t think about it much day-to-day, but when you were a kid, when you were growing up, did you dream of being the No. 1 player in the world, and what would that mean to you if you are able to get there?
ELENA RYBAKINA: Well, it would mean definitely a lot. I know for me, even if you say by the ranking it’s close, for me it still feels very far. So I’m not thinking about it so much.
We all still compete, so it doesn’t depend only on me, also how others are going to do.
But when I was young I was not even, if we talk about as a kid, I was not even thinking that I’m going to be professional playing at this level. I think I achieved quite a lot. I’m super happy. If I can do better, amazing, I try my best, and hopefully it happens one day.
Q. It’s such a fascinating season right now on the WTA tour. The No. 1 ranking up for grabs, three different singles slam winners, a lot of players having really good seasons. How do you view the depth of the tour right now, and how this competitive environment pushes you to become a better player?
COCO GAUFF: Yeah, I think the depth on the WTA tour is pretty strong. I feel like anybody can win on any day. It’s difficult, it makes every match difficult.
There’s no one that I think you get in the first round and you’re like, “Whew.” I feel like every match is tough.
It’s always like that, but I feel like since I started on tour to now, I really feel the depth is stronger. I think it shows with all the stats. And now just the different slam winners almost every season. And just, yeah, like you said, No. 1 ranking up for grabs. Just things like that. But, I don’t know, it makes it interesting.
Q. A couple years ago when you were here in Toronto you said that you felt like you transformed into Sailor Moon once you set foot on hard courts. Does it kind of click for you right away once the summer hard court season comes, and you just feel really comfortable?
NAOMI OSAKA: Honestly, I wouldn’t say it clicked, because in DC I felt a little off. I’m glad I went there, because I’m not sure, right off of grass, if I came, like, if this was my first tournament, I would have done as well.
So I’m glad I have the experience of DC under my belt. But I do think, you know, obviously this is, well, this surface is the only surface that I have titles on, so I think that’s for a reason. But I wasn’t mad at grass this year too.
Soccer: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer
Tennis: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer
Basketball: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports
Softball: Maren Angus-Coombs, @Maren-Angus, The IX Sports
Golf: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports
Hockey: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden
Gymnastics: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer
