Toronto: Radwanska upends in-form Vandeweghe

Does it count as an upset if a seeded player beats a non-seed?

In the case of Agnieszka Radwanska’s 6-3 6-2 win over CoCo Vandeweghe, it certainly felt like one.

The 10th seed’s victory took her hardcourt record over the American to an unblemished 5-0; she’s 5-1 against Vandeweghe overall, having lost their last meeting on grass in Birmingham last year.

Vandeweghe came into the match having reached last week’s WTA Stanford final while Radwanska was a meagre 14-11 in 2017, yet did advance to the fourth round at Wimbledon, her most recent tournament.

“In tennis you don’t have easy draws – you have bad ones, or really bad ones,” said Radwanska, who faced one of the highest-ranked unseeded players in the draw.

“Right now tennis is so strong that everyone is playing very solid and a great game, you have to focus from the first point.

“I’m very very happy that I could play my best tennis today from the first point, especially here where conditions are pretty different from everywhere else. The first match is always tricky so I’m happy to win in two sets.”

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Radwanska next faces Timea Babos, who brushed aside Canadian wildcard Bianca Andreescu 6-4 6-1.

Meanwhile, fifth seed Elina Svitolina was the first player through to the third round, beating Daria Kasatkina 7-6(4) 6-4.

In her first match since Wimbledon, the Ukrainian appeared fresher than Kasatkina, storming back from 0-4 in the second set to set up a potential stoush with Venus Williams in the last 16.

Home hopes were crushed when former world No.5 Eugenie Bouchard fell in the first round to qualifier Donna Vekic.

Bouchard, who before the tournament discussed her constant battle with controlling her nerves, found the Croatian too strong in a 6-3 6-4 loss.

Next up for Vekic is No.3 seed Angelique Kerber.

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In other results, 16th seed Elena Vesnina will take on Australian qualifier Ash Barty in the second round after both advanced on Tuesday, while Washington DC champ Ekaterina Makarova and Stanford semifinalist CiCi Bellis continued their good form with first-round wins.

Wimbledon semifinalist Magdalena Rybarikova – a lucky loser entry into the main draw after the withdrawal of Madison Keys – overcame Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and will play second seed Simona Halep in round two.