Shelton ends Mannarino jinx in Toronto
"This win was huge for me. He's a shotmaker, he can take the racquet out of your hands," Shelton said after his 56-minute win.
"I've played well against him in the past and come up short, he can make things really difficult."
Shelton broke twice to lift the opening set and cruised to a 5-3 margin in the second.
He had to get past a niggle, double-faulting in the final game but saving the ensuing break point and finally clinching the win with a 16th ace followed by a service winner on match point.
"His hands are so good," Shelton said of Mannarino. "You have to hit your (serving) spots really well. I'm happy I served well - I have nothing to complain about.
"He's one of the great returners so I had to vary my serves. I'm happy with how I played."
Andrey Rublev, runner-up in Canada a year ago to Alexei Popyrin, won his 250th career match on hardcourt as he beat France's Hugo Gaston 6-2, 6-3.
The sixth seed needed four match points to advance after 86 minutes.
He now plays Italian Lorenzo Sonego, a 6-1, 6-4 winner over China's Bu Yunchaokete.
Wimbledon quarter-finalist Flavio Cobolli of Italy delivered four aces in the final game of a rain-interrupted match to clinch a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Canadian Alexis Galarneau.
But Canadian Gabriele Diallo came out on top against his Italian opponent, beating Matteo Gigante 6-3, 7-6 (7/5).
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Rybakina outlasts Yastremska to reach WTA Montreal quarter-finals
Kazakhstan's Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion who won her first title in more than a year at Strasbourg in May, was slowed by nine double faults. But she ultimately had enough to get past Ukraine's Yastremska -- who was coming off a straight-sets victory over eighth-seeded American Emma Navarro. Yastremska fell behind an early break in the first set, but took advantage of Rybakina's early serving woes to break back, and broke again to take the opening set in a game that Rybakina had led 40-0. Rybakina, seeded ninth, bore down after that, breaking Yastremska twice to take the second set. Another untimely double fault cost her a break in the third, but she broke Yastremska for the second time in the set to take a 6-5 lead and held on to seal it on her fourth match point with a high backhand volley winner. She'll face another Ukrainian in Kostyuk, who came from behind to beat American McCartney Kessler 5-7, 6-3, 6-3. Kostyuk reached the quarter-finals of WTA-1000 events at Qatar and Madrid this year, but she arrived in Montreal having not won a match since reaching the fourth round in Rome. "I hadn't won a match in three months before this tournament -- I didn't have a lot of confidence coming into it," she admitted, thanking her team for "sticking with me". Top-seeded American Coco Gauff headlined the night session, taking on 18-year-old Canadian wild card Victoria Mboko. Gauff, the reigning French Open champion, has been erratic in clawing her way into the fourth round with a pair of three-set victories and will be looking to step it up against the home hope, who has thrilled fans in her first main draw appearance in the event. Mboko is in the round of 16 in a 1000-level event for the first time. She took Gauff to three sets on the clay courts of Rome earlier this year and said she was "really excited" for another shot at the American. "She's the number one seed of this tournament," Mboko said. "I'm going to really expect a hard fight. It's always great to play such incredible athletes and incredible players like her." The winner of that match will play either China's Zhu Lin or Spain's Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, who are both seeking to reach the quarters of a 1000 level event for the first time. Zhu, once ranked as high as number 31 in the world, has dropped to 493rd after missing the last five months of 2024 and another three months earlier this year with an elbow injury.
LeMonde
13 hours ago
- LeMonde
French swimmer Maxime Grousset clinches third world title in butterfly
Léon Marchand is not the only athlete to thrill French swimming fans. At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Maxime Grousset went largely unnoticed – he did not win any individual medals. However, the World Swimming Championships in Singapore have brought him back into the spotlight as the second main figure in French swimming, nearly on par with "King Léon." Earlier in the week, "Max'" had set the French team in motion by winning the 50m butterfly, his second world title after the 100m butterfly in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2023. The third title came soon after, just five days later, as he won another 100m butterfly final, setting new French and European records (49.62 seconds) on Saturday, August 2. He finished just ahead of his friend, Switzerland's Noè Ponti (second, 49.83 seconds), and Canadian athlete Ilya Kharun (third, 50.07 seconds). Grousset, the distance's second-best performer of all time, became the first French swimmer to swim the 100m butterfly in under 50 seconds. "What did I just do? That's crazy!" he said, looking ecstatic after his race. "He set the pace for the others from the very start of the race; he had already partly won. He raced like a boss," said Denis Auguin, national technical director of the French Swimming Federation (FFN), immediately after the race.
LeMonde
a day ago
- LeMonde
Squiban wins her second consecutive stage victory in the women's Tour de France
French rider Maëva Squiban claimed a back-to-back double in the women's Tour de France by winning stage 7 on Friday, August 1, a day after her first breakaway stage victory. Mauritian Kim Le Court-Pienaar held on to the overall lead as the nine-day race heads into Saturday's stage 8, the first of two Alpine runs taking in two ascents and finishing atop the Col de la Madeleine at 2000 meters. The 23-year-old Squiban attacked from distance on the hilly 159.7-kilometer stage from Bourg-en-Bresse to Chambéry in a carbon copy of her first stage win, while her compatriot Cedrine Kerbaol and American Ruth Edwards rounded out the podium. Squiban broke away two kilometers from the summit of the Col du Granier, later claiming she had been joking when she went. "I jokingly said I would attack at the start. In the end, it wasn't a joke," she said. In the overall standings on the eve of the queen stage, the penultimate of this 2025 edition, Le Court has a 26-second lead over Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and a 30-second margin over defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma.
