Toronto: No Upsets in the Top Half as All Eight Seeds Reach the Round of 16

Aryna Sabalenka has beaten Zhang Shuai 6-3, 6-4 to close out a day in which the third round of the Toronto WTA 1000 produced not a single upset: all eight winners in the top half of the draw were seeded players. Iga Swiatek dispatched Viktorija Golubic 6-2, 6-1 in 66 minutes, Jessica Pegula beat Kamilla Rakhimova 6-4, 6-0 in a match interrupted by rain and completed with a love second set.

In the three seed-versus-seed matchups, the higher-ranked player won every time.
Diana Shnaider (15) handled Anna Kalinskaya (17) 6-3, 6-3, Marta Kostyuk (10) eliminated Madison Keys (19) 6-3, 6-1, and Elina Svitolina (9) conceded just two games to Anastasia Potapova (24), 6-1, 6-1.
The only three-set matches came against unseeded players: Ekaterina Alexandrova (16) dropped the first set to Australia's Talia Gibson before rallying 5-7, 6-1, 6-3, and Amanda Anisimova (8) got past Nikola Bartunkova 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 after falling behind 3-4 in the decider.

The round of 16 already looks heavyweight: Sabalenka against Alexandrova, Pegula against Shnaider, Swiatek against Kostyuk, Anisimova against Svitolina. Pegula leads their head-to-head with Shnaider 3-0 and beat her 7-5, 6-4 in the Washington semifinal last week.

Today it's the bottom half's turn, where the draw has already come apart. Elena Rybakina (2) faces Ann Li (28), Coco Gauff (4) meets Maria Sakkari (29), Mirra Andreeva (5) plays Canada's Leylah Fernandez (30), and Naomi Osaka (11) takes on Elise Mertens (20).
The other four matches feature players who already knocked out a seed in the previous round: Caty McNally, who eliminated Linda Noskova (6), faces Alexandra Eala (25); Taylor Townsend meets Belinda Bencic (12); Liudmila Samsonova plays qualifier Maya Joint; and Alina Korneeva, through from qualifying, faces Iva Jovic (13).