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TORONTO — Canada’s singles hopes were dashed at the National Bank Open on Friday night when Montreal’s Gabriel Diallo dropped a 6-4, 6-2 decision to Taylor Fritz.
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The second-seeded American secured early service breaks in each set and closed out the victory in one hour 15 minutes.
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Diallo, the No. 27 seed, was the last Canadian left in the 96-man singles draw. The other seeded Canadians — Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime (No. 21) and Denis Shapovalov (No. 22) of Richmond Hill, Ont. — lost their opening matches earlier in the week.
Fritz was more consistent and played a steadier game than the 23-year-old Diallo, who recently won his first ATP Tour event in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.
Diallo couldn’t find his rhythm on a cool, comfortable evening at Sobeys Stadium. He sprayed shots at inopportune times, his net play seemed off and the unforced errors caught up to him.
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Fritz, who won a five-set battle when they played at Wimbledon a month ago, seemed content to let Diallo keep making mistakes rather than outpower him.
The Centre Court crowd did its best to support Diallo, but he was unable to generate much energy in the venue. Another service break came in the seventh game of the second set and Fritz served it out for the victory.
The American will face Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round. The Czech posted a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Arthur Fils of France earlier in the day.
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Other third-round winners included 20th-seeded Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain, 13th-seeded Italian Flavio Cobolli, seventh-seeded American Frances Tiafoe and sixth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev.
Fourth-ranked Ben Shelton was scheduled to play fellow American Brandon Nakashima in the feature night match.
In doubles play, Sander Arends of the Netherlands and Argentina’s Guido Andreozzi needed just 52 minutes to post a 6-0, 6-3 win over the wild-card duo of Nicolas Arsenault of Richmond Hill, Ont., and Vancouver’s Justin Boulais.
Arends and Andreozzi will next face Liam Draxl of Newmarket, Ont., and Calgary’s Cleeve Harper.
Play continues through Thursday at the US$9.19-million tournament.
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