Eala TAKES OVER Toronto, Coco shouts me out! Canadian men down BAD

Alex Eala mania has completely taken over Toronto, with a sellout crowd in Sobeys Stadium propelling the Filipina sensation to a three-set win over Alycia Parks. I'll preview Alex's upcoming match against Caty McNally and highlight some other results, including the MANY upsets in Montreal. And of course I HAVE to discuss Coco Gauff shouting me out during her press conference! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

From Alexiala selling out and shutting down Toronto, Coco Golf literally shouting me out in her press conference, and almost all the Canadians and top seeds losing early. This National Bank Open has been one for the books already, and the tournament just barely got underway. I'll tell you everything you need to know about the first 1000 of the North American Summer Hardcourt Swing, including some on-the-grounds coverage and some insightful press conference quotes from my time in Toronto thus far. Hey, how's it going? My name is Christian Bassnight, and welcome to Christian's Court where I cover tennis from all angles. I don't really know how to do a Canadian accent, so that was my best attempt at a Canadian greeting or intro. But if you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you are notified whenever I post my next Canadian Open recap video. So without a doubt, the big star in Canada or in the Canadian Open right now is Alexiala. As I said on my short form platforms, the tournament sold Chicken Adobo on site on Wednesday, just for her debut in Toronto. And apparently they will be serving Lumpia on Friday night for her third round match, which I'm very excited for. I saw some Filipinos dragging the Adobo when I included a video clip of it in my reel or whatever. So hopefully the Lumpia will be a little bit of a bigger hit. The Adoba wasn't it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anything too memorable to be honest. But Yala, she more than pleased the sold-out stadium court crowd when she up-ended Alicia Park 6-1-4-662 to progress to the third round. The first two sets looked very similar to their previous meeting at the 2026 Australian Open first round, which Parks won Love 6, 6362. Alex was in total control of the opening set, and Alicia made her life easier by making a lot of unforced errors in that first set, especially from her forehand side. And watching Alicia live from where I was sitting in the in the stands, it was truly jaw-dropping because she just hit so hard and so flat. Like it's almost like every shot she just puts her entire strength into the ball. Like it's it's really something. But many of those shots, of course, were not landing in the opening set, but they started to hit their marks in the second set. And also Alicia, I think, played a little bit more within herself, played with greater margins, and she used the drop shot even more with great success. And she also served better in the second set while Alex's serve definitely declined. However, unlike in Melbourne, Alicia was not able to continue that momentum into this into the decider and take it in three. And I think the main difference was really Alex's confidence from having just one DC and winning a lot of tight matches there. And she cut down on the unforged heirs a lot in the deciding set. She committed 15 unforged errors in set number two and just five in set number three. And Niala also made 17 out of her 20 first serves in play, which for sure helped a lot. And she won 71% of her first serve points in the deciding set, while Alicia won 50% of her first serve points in set number three. And really, aside from the whole match, just the atmosphere was just something I've never ever witnessed before. Really, in a sporting event period, let alone a tennis match. And they definitely helped will Alex towards the finish line there in the end. Alicia was, you know, upset at some parts of the match. And I saw some criticisms about the crowd and how the crowd they were cheering a little bit in between first and second serves, um, and also on Alicia's double faults, which technically isn't traditional tennis etiquette. Um, and maybe I think the crowd was doing just a little bit too much at times, but overall, I'm not too mad at it. Again, like I said before, I think tennis needs more of this type of environment instead of just the because I feel like I would rather have a crowd like this that's overly hyped than just a dull crowd that just is boring because I've sat at matches where the crowds were like that before, so I definitely appreciate this type of crowd. But looking forward to Friday night when Alex takes on another American Katie McNally. McNally, she upset reigning woman champion Linda Noskova 7-6-6-1. This was a pretty surprising result considering that Linda was up 5-1 in the first set and she had two set points up 5-2, but was unable to convert. And the first set really just decided the match because Katie ran away with the second set in the end. I honestly did not catch too much of this match live, and Noskova did not speak with media afterwards. But this is the second time this year where a first-time slam champion lost their first match as a major champion, as Mira Andreva lost her very first match after winning Roland Guerros and Bad Omborg. But more on Mira in a second. But I think that Ayala will be glad to take on McNally instead of Noskova because Alex notoriously has a not great one in 13 head-to-head record against Czech players. And Linda beat her twice this year in straight sets at Indian Wells and Berlin. This match between Katie and Alex will be very, very interesting. And McNally is unlike anyone that Alex has faced this hardcourt swing. She doesn't really have a ton of power from the ground compared to some recent, some of Alex's recent opponents, but she does have more weapons and her repertoire. She's a very crafty type of player, isn't afraid to come forward, hit a lot of slices and chip and charges too. So I think it'll be a really, again, an interesting match. And Katie doesn't have a huge serve, and that'll be intriguing to me to see whether Alex will be aided by that or if it'll hurt her, because I think Alex does do well whenever she doesn't have to think and she whenever she reacts to fast balls and fast serves. So here I think that she'll have to generate her own power a lot of times, which she can do, but having coming off played Alicia, who's such a big player, to not facing off against Katie, that could be a tricky transition. I think for sure it'll be a tight match, but I see the crowd carrying Alex to another three-set win. Now Lila Fernandez was essentially the opening act for Alex last night as she opened the night session with a dominant 6'2, 6'2 win in front of her home crowd over Renata Zarazua. Canadian tennis needed this win because before Fernandez even struck a ball, she was the last remaining Canadian singles player, male or female, at the National Bank Open, which is insane. Andres Sku lost round one to Nikola Bartunkova, as did most other Canadians except for Kayla Cross and Katherine Sabov, who lost in round two. Of course, Victoria Mboko is not playing this tournament due to injury. And then on the men's side in Montreal, injury has struck the top Canadians there. As Denis Povalov, he was forced to retire down love three in his opening round against Zach Sfida due to an ankle injury that he sustained during the Los Cabos final. Gierro Diallo, meanwhile, he retired down 6'4-2-3 to 19th seed Luciano Dardari after he sustained a left leg injury during their second round encounter. And to make matters worse, the top Canadian in second seed Felix Alje Al-Yassim withdrew from the tournament ahead of his opening round match due to a back issue that he sustained during practice earlier in the week. And Felix said that he couldn't even hit a serve at one point. Definitely devastating for not only the fans, but in this case Felix, because I think he had a great look at going all the way here at his home 1000 tournament. Not only has he been playing great this season, but five of the other top ten seeds lost in their opening round matches, including the top seed, Alexander Zverev, who fell to Talent Greek Spores 6'7, 6'2, 6'4. Fourth seed, Dino Mededev, bit the dust to Boltak Vendisl 6'3, 7-6. Number six seed, Flavio Kaboli. He lost to Yannick Hampfman in two tiebreak sets. DC Open Champ Taylor Fritz lost to Tiago Tirante in straight sets. And then Andrey Rublev squandered five match points in his defeat to Jerry Shang. The field is definitely more wide open now, but there's still some really tough players and some edgy third-round matchups to look forward to. We have an all-American battle between Lerner Tien and Tommy Paul. And Lerner, he had a memorable three-set win over Galon Feast last night. Caspar Root takes on Joao Fonseca for a rematch of their Roland Garrett's fourth-round match. With the winner of that one to take on the winner of Ben Sheldon against Jiju Berg. Yuri Le Heshka faces off against Alexander Bloch. With the winner of that to face the winner of Rafa Hodar and Lorenzo Musetti, which is a rematch of the DC Open quarterfinal. Alter Feast and Alex Demonor are each one match away from facing off in the fourth round. Francis Siafo takes on Arthur Renernesh in round three, which should be a good match as well. So there are still some top players, again, like I said, in Montreal, but you know, Montreal always seems to have interesting champions on the men's side as of late. As Alexi Poprin, he won it in 2024. As an unceded player, Pavel Kranya Busta won the title in 2022. So we very well could have another unexpected champion here in 2026. But back to the woman, the lone remaining Canadian singles player, Fernandez, will next take on Mira Andreva, who dominated Carolina Plishkova, 6'Love, 6'2. Mira leaves the head-to-head 2-1 over Layla, but Layla won their lone match on hardcourt, although it was in 2023. But Layla also has the home crowd advantage here in Toronto. Now, also in this little section is Naomi Osaka, who won her opening match against Pana Udvardi 6'2, 6'4. She now takes on Elise Mertens in round three, and Mertens actually beat her in Toronto here two years ago. Now, while Fernandez, Osaka, and Andreva cruised through their matches without too much fanfare, some other top seeds had to scrap. Jessica Pagula came back to beat Magdalena Freck 3-6-6-3-62. This is the second straight tournament where she's beaten Freck after she beat Freck in DC with a very similar scoreline. But Pagula, she now plays against Camilla Rakamova today. Atlanta Robina had a very, very scrappy 6'3-5-7-6-4 victory over Darek Hesekina in round two. Definitely was not the best serving day from the Kazakh. She hit 15 aces and 16 double faults, and she served at 44% of first serves in play. Atlanta acknowledged in her press conference that she needs to serve better, but she seemed just overall happy to get through the match, and she's seemingly expecting herself to play better round by round. Now Robacno was not the only top four seed who had some service struggles in their opening match in Toronto. Coco Golf hit 10 double faults in her pretty up and down, 6'2, 7'5 win over fellow American Kayla Day. And I asked Coco about her surf after the match. I said, like, you've improved your surf for sure, especially in the grass season and the clay season. Um but I asked if she felt that she still had more work to do with her surf or if her double faults towards the end of the match were more due to her, you know, having rust or just the first match she did hers. And Coco said that it really was neither, but it was more so just her feeling it physically towards the end.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

I mean, I feel like most a lot of the doubles came towards the end, and um honestly towards the end, I wasn't like physically feeling like my best. Um so I think that was like the main reason, but um yeah, I don't know. It is getting better, so I'm definitely proud of the progress that's been made so far, but um like like I said, definitely working on closing out those matches and especially when I'm serving for it.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

You mentioned earlier not feeling the best physically towards the end of the match. Can you speak to what was going on and then how you are you feeling now?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, I think um honestly I had like a hard training block in Florida, and I mean the goal is to peek at yes open. So I know maybe this first week I'm not gonna be feeling like 100% because I did load like so much um post-womelden. Um, but it's kind of the normal kind of way we approach these swings. Is the goal is to physically peak for the slams. So just getting through this match, and I feel like by tomorrow I'll be good. I think it was just a long couple weeks for me um of training.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

But of course, I do have to mention the shout-out that Coco gave me in her press conference. That was really, really quite something. Um, I asked Coco basically how she navigates being on social media, namely TikTok, um, so actively as she is, despite being such a public figure. And you know, she gave a good response in the end, but she she mentioned that she sees my content on her for you page, and that whole interaction was was very funny. How do you navigate maybe coming across a TikTok that might be about you and and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 12:31

You come on my for you page all the time. And I I think I think that my brother might have commented something on one of your video.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Was it a good comment or what?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Uh no, but I told him that I like you, so he deleted it. He's he was he's 13, so at the time it was probably like 11 or 12.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And I saw Ben called you out too. No, I'm not calling you out. I like your content.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I'm just imagining both of y'all called.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

I like your content, and I think you interviewed me in DC like uh like what three years ago, four years ago. Yeah, yeah, I like your content. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I've I've listened to your tips and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Follow him, Christian Score. Okay, what was your question?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

But again, a surreal moment that that happened in the press conference. Um, but it felt great too, that not only Ben Charlton, but now Coco, they see my content and it inspires me and motivates me to keep going because you know the players they do see for better or worse. But up next for Coco is Maria Sakri, who won her last or who Coco has won her last five or six matches, I believe, against. But I think that golf will need to play better against Sakri in round three, and I expect that she will. Now, in round four, golf could face her fellow American Eva Yovic, and Eva told me after her win over Magdalene Lynette that she and Coco trained together in Florida a couple times, like three or four times after Woman. So that'll be interesting if they do face off in the round of 16. But focusing on round three, Yovich will face off against fellow teen Alina Korniva, who upset Emma Navarro 6'2, 6'2. Now I also asked why Eva skipped the DC open as she was initially set to play that tournament, and she said that she just needed to take a break after Woman. And Taylor Townsend told me the same thing of why she skipped DC. She just needed a break. But Townsend, she got her third win over Marie Volskova at a WT 1000 this year alone when she defeated the 21st seed 7-6-7-5. She will take on Belinda Benchic in round three. Now, looking at the matches going on today, I mean, Iga, she literally just wrapped up her match against Victoria Gojevic. I wish I was there in person, but I had to get my sleep, y'all. I didn't go to bed until 4 in the morning or something like that, because I was cutting stuff and trying to prepare this video or like outline the video. Um, and I tried to wake up, but I just couldn't do it. But I needed my sleep. I wanted to get Iga the first day I was here on Tuesday, but hopefully I'll be able to talk with her on Saturday and I should be able to watch her live because I really been wanting to speak with her. Pagula is about to take the court now, and then after Pagula is Sabalinka against Zhang, and then Iyala and Venus for double. So that'll be intriguing. But also, Costak and Key should be a really good match as well. But that is all I have for this Toronto update. Let me know your thoughts on the uh Iyala mania going on right now in Canada. Make sure you tune in to my short form platforms to hear some interviews from some enthusiastic and proud Filipino fans. That was really great to hear from them. And yeah, make sure you subscribe, click the notification bell for more on the grounds updates of me in Toronto. But thank y'all so much for watching and for your support. I'll see y'all next time here on Christian's Court.