Auastralia’s Talia Gibson was one of the breakthrough players on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz the last time the tour was on hard courts this spring, as she reached the second week of both Indian Wells and Miami as a qualifier during the Sunshine Double.
After a leaner run on the natural surfaces of clay and grass, Gibson is picking up where she left off at the National Bank Open, and after upsetting No. 18 seed and Roland Garros finalist Maja Chwalinska in Tuesday’s second round, she confessed she had been “definitely … looking forward to” a return to cement.
“Coming into this tournament, I just wanted to do my best to not put any pressure on myself around any results, but to find my way back into some good rhythm,” said Gibson, who lost in the first round of the Memphis Classic last week. “I was super happy to do that in the first round and backing it up today, it felt good that I was able to go out and produce some of my best tennis.”
Gibson scored notable wins against Ekaterina Alexandrova, Clara Tauson, Jasmine Paolini, Naomi Osaka and Iva Jovic in the Sunshine Double — but was 0-5 against Top 50 players since then before knocking off Chwalinska in 1 hour and 40 minutes. After falling behind an early break twice, Gibson found her range and rhythm against Chwalinska’s variety — something she said that she was prepared to face.
“She did extremely well at the French Open. I watched a fair bit, she did often go to the drop shot a lot and use a huge amount of the variation on the clay court,” she said. “t was a little bit hard to tell because she hadn’t played a hard-court match in a little while … if she was going to play differently on a hard court, or whether she was going to keep the same ways she was playing.
“Going into the match, I wanted to just be ready for anything, knowing that she likes to use a lot of variation in her game. I knew that I wasn’t going to be hit off the court by her, so I think knowing that I was going to have a fair bit of time on the ball .”
Gibson will bid for back-to-back Top 20 wins when she faces No. 16 Ekaterina Alexandrova in the Round of 16. More notable numbers from her upset win included:
2: Chawlinska is now 0-2 since her final run in Paris, and was making her first appearance after a first-round loss at Wimbledon in which she injured her ankle.
3: Chwalinska only won three points on serve in the second set.
7: Gibson saved seven of the 10 break points she faced in the match, including 5-of-6 in the second set. Three of those came in the first game.
8: Gibson won the last eight points of the match.