![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Listen to this article<\/p>\n
Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n
An early match time didn’t faze Elena Rybakina on Tuesday at the National Bank Open. Neither did a strong start by her opponent.<\/p>\n
Rybakina came back for a 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4 win over Naomi Osaka to reach the semifinals at the WTA Tour event. The second seed from Kazakhstan broke Osaka’s serve at 3-3 in the deciding set and held on for the win at Sobeys Stadium.<\/p>\n
“It was a very difficult match,” Rybakina said. “I honestly don’t know how I managed to turn it around.”<\/p>\n
The match started earlier than planned after Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic pulled out due to a hip injury. Fourth-seeded Coco Gauff advanced to the semifinals via walkover.<\/p>\n
Organizers confirmed the withdrawal shortly before the evening match was set to begin on centre court.<\/p>\n
The Rybakina-Osaka match was moved up into the time-slot and the players delivered with a back-and-forth battle that lasted two hours 33 minutes.<\/p>\n
Rybakina played her previous matches during the day sessions and had hoped for a longer pre-match practice session to adjust to the late-day light.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t find the feeling, it took me some time,” Rybakina said.<\/p>\n
The hard-serving six-footer will meet Gauff in the semifinals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“She’s a great fighter,” Rybakina said. “I know it’s going to be a very difficult match.”<\/p>\n
The other matchup pits ninth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine against seventh-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland. Both players won their quarterfinal matches on Monday.<\/p>\n
The final was scheduled for Thursday at the $7.43-million US tournament.<\/p>\n
The 12th-seeded Bencic, who won here in 2015, played with significant taping around her left thigh in a fourth-round win over Alexandra Eala of the Philippines on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“I am really sorry to not be able to compete tonight,” Bencic said in a statement. “This is an amazing tournament and I was really looking forward to playing in front of the great fans here in Toronto.<\/p>\n
“I tried everything possible to be ready for tonight.”<\/p>\n
The 11th-seeded Osaka broke serve in the match’s opening game and was two points away from victory in the second-set tiebreaker before Rybakina pulled even.<\/p>\n
Up 3-2 in the decider, the four-time Grand Slam champion from Japan had four break-point opportunities but Rybakina held serve to tie it.<\/p>\n
Osaka was broken after that and Rybakina would close out the match with her 15th ace to secure her third WTA 1000 semifinal appearance of the season.<\/p>\n
“I was just trying to stay positive and tried to stay close to the score,” Rybakina said. “I’m very happy that I managed to turn it around.”<\/p>\n
Osaka reached the NBO final last year in Montreal before falling to Canada’s Victoria Mboko, who was unable to defend her title due to a knee injury.<\/p>\n
In doubles semifinal play, Italy’s Sara Errani and American Nicole Melichar-Martinez beat Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 4-6, 10-8.<\/p>\n
In quarterfinal action, Tereza Mihalikova of Slovakia and Britain’s Olivia Nicholls posted a 7-5, 6-4 win over Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Russia’s Diana Shnaider.<\/p>\n
Shelton’s quest to repeat continues in Montreal <\/p>\n
Defending National Bank Open men’s singles champion Ben Shelton is through to the semifinals after the fifth-seeded American easily defeated Czechia’s Jakub Mensik 6-3, 6-1 at Montreal’s IGA Stadium.<\/p>\n
“It was a great night for me,” said Shelton. “I think days like this when everything is clicking is a little bit easier in terms of mentality out on the court.<\/p>\n
“I think that it is a lot tougher on the days where you have things that you are struggling with or problems on your side of the net that are difficult to solve.”<\/p>\n
Shelton, who hasn’t lost a set during the 2026 tournament, reached his 16th career ATP Tour-level semifinal and first on hard courts since his ATP 500 title in Dallas in February.<\/p>\n
He will face fellow American Learner Tien in Wednesday night’s second semifinal after the No. 12 seed defeated Spain’s Daniel Merida 6-3, 6-2 in the late match.<\/p>\n
Earlier Tuesday, Brandon Nakashima also secured his place in the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Luciano Darderi, giving the United States three men in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 19-year-old Spaniard Rafael Jodar defeated France’s Arthur Fils 7-6 (5), 6-3 to close out Tuesday’s day session.<\/p>\n
Jodar will face Nakashima Wednesday night in what will be the first Masters 1000 semifinal for either player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-855689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}