Bianca Andreescu ended a long drought on Tuesday.
The Canadian won her first WTA main-draw match since last July with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 upset of world No. 84 Dalma Galfi of Hungary in the first round of the Charleston Open, a WTA 250 clay-court event.
Andreescu, whose ranking has slipped to No. 140, has played mostly lower-level events this year as she tries to boost her ranking to the highs of 2019 when she won the U.S. Open and reached No. 4 in the world.
Andreescu lost a three-set match to Galfi in February in Austin, Texas. The Canadian's last main-draw win came at last year's National Bank Open presented by Rogers in Montreal when she suffered an ankle injury, preventing her from playing in the second round.
Andreescu, 25, has done well building herself back up at lower levels this year, sporting a win-loss record of 19-5.
She started the year at No. 228.
"I wanted to do that back in 2024 (after a nine-month hiatus), but I guess we can say my ego got in the way of that," Andreescu said of her decision to return to lower levels this year, per the WTA Tour. "I decided that maybe it's time to put that aside and really get what I've been needing, which is matches. It's never guaranteed that you'll be getting a lot of matches — the level on the ITF circuit is huge, I think. They're fighting for a lot.
"Looking back at how I feel being on the WTA Tour, it's more comfortable, right? You get more benefits being on the WTA Tour, so mentally you maybe relax a little bit. But on the ITF tour, I mean, it's do-or-die. These players are barely breaking even. I proved to myself that I can play match after match and feel good. I played 14 matches in 16 or 17 days, and my body felt great."
Andreescu said she was happy with her effort against Kalma.
"At the end of the day, it's the effort that counts for me," she said in her on-court interview. "If I've given the best I could that day, which I think I did, that's the most important thing. And then intention, that's what I speak about with my coach every single day. If I can give those two things, then win or lose, it doesn't matter to me — have to be pleased with that."
Andreescu will next face No. 16 seed Sofia Kenin of the U.S.
