Andreescu out of Wimbledon after straight-sets loss to Rybakina
CBC
Canada's Bianca Andreescu is out of Wimbledon after dropping a 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) decision to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan on Thursday.
Rybakina fired four aces to Andreescu's two, and converted on three of four break points.
Rybakina also won 80 per cent of her first-serve points, while Andreescu won 65 per cent of hers.
The 23-year-old Rybakina, seeded 17th in the women's draw, will next meet China's Qinwen Zheng, 19, in the tournament's third round.
Andreescu, 22, advanced to the second round at the All England Tennis Club for the first time in her career after breezing past American Emina Bektas 6-1, 6-3 in Tuesday's opener.
On the men's side, No. 17 seed Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., the last remaining Canadian in singles play, was scheduled to meet American Brandon Nakashima on Thursday.
Meanwhile, two-time champion Petra Kvitova has plenty of experience on the grass courts of Wimbledon.
But that doesn't mean everything is easy for her in southwest London.
She has spoken about being nervous when she comes to Wimbledon, and she showed some of those nerves on Thursday when she beat Ana Bogdan 6-1, 7-6 (5).
It was a straight-sets victory, but the second set wasn't straightforward.
Kvitova was leading 5-1 when Bogdan started to reel off game after game. Then Kvitova had a match point while serving at 5-4, but failed to convert that chance and then the game itself, eventually leading to the tiebreaker.
She still pulled it out in the end, like she has done so many times in the past at Wimbledon. She won her first title in 2011, and added the second in 2014. But she was attacked in her home in 2016 and suffered knife injuries to her playing left hand. She later had surgery and needed more than five months to recover.
Last week, she won the fifth grass-court title of her career at a tournament in Eastbourne, England.
That should have given her plenty of confidence heading into this tournament, and this match.
