Marino, Bouchard, Dabrowski move on at Chennai Open tennis tournament

CHENNAI, India — Rebecca Marino, Eugenie Bouchard and Gabriela Dabrowski moved on to the quarterfinals of their respective competitions on another successful day for Canadians at the Chennai Open tennis tournament.

Vancouver's Marino, the seventh seed in singles competition at the WTA 250 event, continued her successful 2022 season with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Poland's Katarzyna Kawa in Wednesday's second-round action.

Bouchard, from Westmount, Que., joined Marino with a 6-2, 7-6 (5) win over India's Karman Thandi, while the top-seeded team of Ottawa's Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani of Brazil won its opening doubles match, 6-4, 6-1 over Greece's Despina Papamichail and Britain's Katie Swan.

Marino won 64.6 per cent of service points and converted four of her seven break points to win the match in one hour 36 minutes.

The 31-year-old is coming off a run to the third round at the U.S. Open that moved her WTA ranking to No. 90, her highest since she was ranked 83rd on Feb. 13, 2012.

Marino will face the winner of a match Thursday between third seed Magda Linette of Poland and Russia's Oksana Selekhmeteva.

Bouchard converted three of her eight break points and defended three of the four she faced to defeat Thandi in 2:13.

The former world No. 5 was coming off her first main-draw win on the WTA Tour since reaching the final of a WTA 250 event in Guadalajara, Mexico, on March 13, 2021.

Bouchard returned to action at last month's Odlum Brown VanOpen after a 17-month layoff recovering from right shoulder surgery.

She will face the winner of a match between fourth seed Tatjana Maria of Germany and Argentina's Nadia Podoroska in the singles quarterfinals. Before that, she will team with Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer in a doubles quarterfinal against Selekhmeteva and Russian partner Anastasia Gasanova on Thursday.

Dabrowski and Stefani saved all four break points they faced, while breaking Papamichail and Swan three times on eight chances in a match that took 1:05 to finish.

Dabrowski and Stefani are next set to face the winner of a first-round match between the Indian duo of Thandi and Rutuja Bhosale and Indonesia's Jessy Rompies and India's Prarthana Thombare.

Also on Thursday, Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill, Ont., faces second seed Varvara Gracheva of Russia in a second-round match.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2022.