TORONTO — Wimbledon champion Simona Halep of Romania defeated American qualifier Jennifer Brady 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5) in a back-and-forth second-round match at the Rogers Cup on Wednesday.
Halep, who won the 2018 Rogers Cup title in Montreal, was up 4-0 in the third set before Brady stormed back by winning five straight games.
The No. 4 Halep broke the 76th-ranked Brady for a third time in the set to go up 6-5, but the former world No. 1 was broken right back to set up the tiebreak.
The match, the second of the day on the Aviva Centre’s centre court, lasted two hours 29 minutes.
It was the first career meeting between the two players.
Brady fell to 12-11 on the season while Halep improved to 37-10.
The 26-year-old Halep will face either Svetlana Kuznetsova or Donna Vekic in the third round. Kuznetsova and Vekic played their second-round tilt later Wednesday.
Karolina Pliskova, another former world No. 1, continued her bid to get back to top spot, advancing to the third round with a 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-2 win over American qualifier Alison Riske in the first match of the day on centre court.
The Czech native, who is now ranked third, could reclaim the No. 1 spot this week with a good run at the US$2.83 million WTA Tour Premier 5 event.
No. 2 Naomi Osaka of Japan needed a win later Wednesday to temporarily take over the No. 1 ranking from Ashleigh Barty of Australia, who dropped her opener on Tuesday.
The top eight seeds got first-round byes.
In other early action Wednesday, No. 16 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia advanced to the third round after Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain retired with a hip injury while trailing 7-5, 3-1. Kontaveit will face Pliskova on Thursday.
Former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus was eliminated in the second round, losing 7-5, 7-5 to Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine.
Pliskova reached the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup the last time it was in Toronto in 2017 during her seven-week run as the top-ranked player in the world.
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, the 2017 Rogers Cup winner, moved onto the third round with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Katerina Siniakova, and 2015 champion Belinda Bencic of Switzerland edged Julia Goerges 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. Bencic and Svitolina will face each other Thursday.
Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., the lone Canadian left in the women’s singles draw, faced Daria Kasatkina of Russia in a second-round match later Wednesday.
American star Serena Williams was slated to play her opening match later Wednesday.
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