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Camila Giorgi showed Bianca Andreescu who was the boss in their first-round match at the National Bank Open women’s tennis championships Tuesday.
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“She hits the ball very hard. She takes the ball very early. She goes for everything, and she acts like she’s the boss on court, and she was the boss on court tonight. Not me, sadly,” Andreescu said after dropping a 6-3, 6-2 decision.
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The loss wasn’t the only bad news for Andreescu, who has been troubled by injuries since she won this tournament and the U.S. Open in 2019. The 22-year-old from Mississauga consulted with the WTA trainer midway through the second set and, while she didn’t receive treatment on court, she revealed that she experienced side joint pain in her back last week in Washington and it flared up again this week.
“I’ll need a few days off and I might skip Cincinnati next week because the U.S. Open is the priority,” she said.
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Andreescu said the injury affected her game, particularly her backhand but she was her own worst enemy in the opening set.
After failing to convert the match’s first two break points in the fifth game, Andreescu missed what should have been a put-away volley on break point to hand Giorgi a 4-2 lead.
In the next game, Andreescu had three chances to break back when Giorgi fell behind 0-40. But the Italian won the next five points to save the game and three of those points were the result of Andreescu’s unforced errors.
Andreescu saved a set point in the next game after taking a 40-0 lead but that merely delayed the inevitable because Giorgi won the next game at love.
At that point, the match was effectively over.
Giorgi broke Andreescu to open the second set and raced to a 4-0 lead.
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Andreescu’s frustration boiled over after she fell behind 5-1 and she received a warning after she launched a ball into the cheap seats.
“I was happy with the way I played,” said Giorgi who has reason to feel comfortable in Montreal. While she had to go through qualifying to earn a place in the main draw, she won the tournament the last time it was played here in 2021.
Fifth-seeded Caroline Garcia of France became the first seed to lose when she was upset by Czechia’s Marie Bouzkova in three sets.
The forecast rain, which never materialized during the day session, finally made an appearance in around 10 p.m. and two late matches were held over until Wednesday.
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