Canadians Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ontario and Felix Auger-Aliassime of Montreal, Quebec are in the third round of the 2022 National Bank Open on Thursday. Andreescu is competing in Toronto and Auger-Aliassime is competing in Montreal.
On Wednesday in the second round, Andreescu beat Alize Cornet of France 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. If you go by the world rankings, this was considered a minor upset. Cornet is 40th in the world, and Andreescu is 53rd. A major reason why Andreescu beat Cornet came down to double faults. Andreescu had only one double fault, while Cornet had eight double faults. Andreescu’s performance against Cornet was a major improvement from the first round of Wimbledon in 2021, where Cornet won 6-2, 6-1.
Auger-Aliassime beat Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan 7-6, 6-4. Auger-Aliassime’s serve was working magnificently as he had 17 aces, while Nishioka had none.
Andreescu will next play Qinwen Zheng of China on Thursday. This will be their first meeting ever head-to-head.
Auger-Aliassime meanwhile has a rich history with the ninth seed, Cameron Norrie of Great Britain, Auger-Aliassime’s third round opponent. Auger-Aliassime has won four of five meetings head-to-head. However, Norrie did beat Auger-Aliassime in the semifinals of Los Cabos, Mexico just last week, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Auger-Aliassime’s career wins over Norrie came in the first round of Indian Wells in 2019 (6-3, 6-2), in the second round of Vienna in 2021 (2-6, 7-6, 6-4), at the 2022 ATP Cup in Australia (7-6, 6-3), and the quarterfinals of Rotterdam in 2022 (7-5, 7-6).
