Gauff battles past Collins; Ito stuns Paolini in Montreal

Montreal, July 30 (IANS) Top seed Coco Gauff survived a tough battle against Danielle Collins after nearly three hours at Canadian Open to earn her first match win since winning Roland Garros in June.

Gauff was two points away from defeat in the third set of her eventual 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(2) win, as Collins wiped away deficits of 2-0 and 4-2 over the last 80 minutes of the match. But the elder of the two Americans never reached match point, and lost nine of the last 11 points played inside IGA Stadium, WTA reprots.

"I was practicing well and I don't think I transferred it today, but hopefully I got my bad match of the tournament out of the way," Gauff said post-match.

"Danielle is a great ball striker and for me to break her as many times as I did, there's definitely some positives to take from today," she added.

Gauff will face another former Top 10 player, Veronika Kudermetova next. The former World No. 9 was a 6-4, 6-2 winner over No. 29 seed Olga Danilovic in the second round.

Having announced herself by reaching the Osaka semifinals on home soil in her WTA debut last October, Ito backed that up with her first WTA 125 title in Canberra to start 2025 and broke into the Top 100 in May. However, she had not won a tour-level match this season until her first-round win over Katie Volynets this week -- also her first victory in a WTA 1000 main draw, according WTA.

Elsewhere, Japanese qualifier Aoi Ito pulled off the biggest upset, knocking out No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini 2-6, 7-5, 7-6(5) in 2 hours and 27 minutes. The World No. 110 had trailed by a set and 4-1, and saved one match point down 5-4 in the second set.

Ito will next play Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in the third round.

Earlier, Bianca Andreescu withdrew from her second-round match at her home WTA 1000 event due to a left ankle injury. Her opponent, No. 4 seed Mirra Andreeva, advances to the third round via walkover.

--IANS

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