Collins tops Teichmann in Montreal for 11th straight win

Danielle Collins, shown in last week's Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose,
Calif., is set to face No. 6 seed Simona Halep on Wednesday. Photo by Mal Taam

   American Danielle Collins extended her winning streak to 11 matches with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Jil Teichmann of Switzerland today in the first round of the National Bank Open on hardcourts in Montreal.

   Collins, 27, of St. Petersburg, Fla., won Palermo, Italy, on clay three weeks ago and San Jose, Calif., on hardcourts last week for her first two WTA titles.

   Collins is scheduled to face No. 6 seed Simona Halep, the 2016 and 2018 champion, on Wednesday at 4 p.m. PDT (Tennis Channel). In their only previous meeting, Halep won 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-2 in the opening round of the 2014 U.S. Open.

   Halep, who received a first-round bye, has been out for three months with a calf tear. She dropped to No. 13 in the rankings this week to end her streak of 373 weeks (more than seven years) in the top 10, eighth-best in WTA history. Halep ascended to No. 1 in 2017.

   Earlier today, wild card Sloane Stephens, a 28-year-old product of Fresno, Calif., outlasted Dayana "Carl" Yastremska of Ukraine 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.

   Stephens, the 2018 runner-up, faced four points to trail 2-5 in the third set. Yasteremska, 21, of Ukraine returned to the tour last month after being cleared of doping and serving a provisional six-month suspension.

   Stephens, who lost to Collins in the second round in San Jose, is set to play 23-year-old Aryna Sabalenka, seeded second and ranked third, on Wednesday after the 8 a.m. PDT match between Paula Badosa of Spain and wild card Rebecca "Dan" Marino of Canada.

   Sabalenka won her only previous match against Stephens, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 on a hardcourt in the 2017 Fed Cup final in Sabalenka's hometown of Minsk, Belarus.

   Sabalenka reached the San Jose final in 2019, losing to Zheng Saisai of China, and advanced to her first Grand Slam semifinal last month at Wimbledon.

   Sara Sorribes "Mel" Tormo of Spain defeated Carol Zhao (Stanford, 2014-16) of Canada 6-2, 6-3. Sorribes Tormo stunned top-ranked Ashleigh Barty in the first round of the Tokyo Olympics before losing to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round.

   ATP Tour — No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal withdrew from the National Bank Open in Toronto with a left foot injury. He has won the last two titles and five overall.

   Northern California natives Mackenzie McDonald and Jenson Brooksby — who reached the final and semifinals, respectively, last week in Washington, D.C. — lost in the opening round.

   Benoit Paire of France eliminated McDonald, now based in Orlando, Fla., 6-3, 6-4 in a clash of unseeded players. Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia topped Brooksby, a 20-year-old wild card from the Sacramento area making his ATP Masters 1000 debut, 2-6, 6-0, 6-4. 

   Basilashvili, who has won titles on hardcourts in Doha and clay in Munich this year, improved to 2-0 against Brooksby. Basilashvili triumphed in four sets in the second round of the 2019 U.S. Open after  Brooksby came within a tiebreaker of leading two sets to none.