Ružić rallies to victory in Toronto
Croatian tennis player Antonia Ružić defeated France's Lois Boisson in three sets after the match was stretched over two days.
Croatian tennis player Antonia Ružić defeated France's Lois Boisson in three sets after the match was stretched over two days.
Antonia Ružić, currently ranked 55th in the world, successfully cleared the first hurdle at the WTA 1000 tournament in Toronto. In a match that lasted more than two hours, she overcame French qualifier Lois Boisson, who sits at 292nd on the WTA rankings, turning the match around for a final score of 4:6, 6:1, 6:3.
The first-round clash began on Sunday but was halted when Boisson led 5:3 in the opening set. Upon returning to the court the next day, the Frenchwoman managed to close out that set in her favor, but a complete turnaround in the Croatian's game followed.
From that point, Ružić raised her level and conceded just four games to her opponent for the rest of the match. In the second set, she broke her rival's serve twice and leveled the match at one set apiece without much trouble.
Boisson resisted until leading 2:1 in the third set, but then Ružić reeled off three games in a row, completely shifting the momentum. In the closing stages, she broke the Frenchwoman's serve once more to seal her passage to the next round.
In the second round, the Croatian faces a significantly tougher challenge against the 19th seed, American Madison Keys.
On the other side of the draw, British player Katie Boulter failed to end her negative run. Unlike her husband, Australian tennis player Alex de Minaur, who has won two matches in Washington since their wedding, Boulter was defeated at the start in Toronto by local player Kayla Cross with a score of 7-6 (3), 7-5. Notably, while leading 6-5 in the first set, she squandered four set points on her own serve.
This marks Boulter's fourth consecutive loss. Her last victory came in mid-June in the quarterfinals of the grass-court tournament at London's Queen's Club, where she was stopped in the semifinals by eventual champion Donna Vekić. Since then, she has lost in her opening matches at Bad Homburg and Wimbledon.
