{"id":898681,"date":"2026-10-29T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T11:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898681\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T11:36:08","slug":"canadas-fernandez-holds-off-mertens-to-reach-japan-open-quarterfinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898681\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada&#8217;s Fernandez holds off Mertens to reach Japan Open quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 1 minute<\/p>\n<p>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<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">Canada&#8217;s Leylah Fernandez defeated fifth-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-2, 7-6 (8) in second-round women&#8217;s singles tennis action at the Japan Open in Tokyo on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">Fernandez, of Laval, Que., went ahead 4-1 in the second set before Mertens staged her comeback effort Thursday morning in Tokyo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">After dropping the next two games, Fernandez made it 5-3, but again gave up two consecutive games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">In the tiebreak, Mertens won the first three points before Fernandez answered with three straight of her own.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">A back-and-forth affair eventually led to Mertens taking an 8-7 edge but Fernandez won the last three points to seal the victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">Fernandez had three double faults and went without an ace. However, she converted four of her 11 break-point opportunities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-b3GxD html-paragraph\">The Canadian will face top-seeded Elena Rybakina oof Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 1 minute The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-898681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}