Alves Stuns Top Seed Coll To Reach Canadian Open Quarters

On a scintillating second day of action in Toronto, France's Melissa Alves scored the upset of the day as she stunned top seed Nele Coll, the world No.5, in straight games to gatecrash the Canadian Women's Open silver event quarter-finals.

The world No.23 has been in terrific form of late and after winning the recent Hamilton Open headed to Toronto full of confidence. The 30-year-old showcased this confidence perfectly in game one and after finding her range at the back of the court almost straight away, she fired the ball in short with great accuracy to take the game to Coll.

Alves scored the opening game 12-10 and showed no signs of slowing down in the following game. The Frenchwoman was happy to rally with Coll knowing that her defensive play was good enough to earn an attacking chance. Like she did in the first game, she took the attacking opportunities with both hands and impressively took a 2/0 lead.

Coll tried her best to battle her way back into the match but Alves' pressure was unrelenting. Alves moved to 10-8 in the third game and after slotting another forehand winner turned to the crowd in celebration after a big win.

"If you get to win 3/0 against the world No.5 then I guess you must have played well," said Alves after her win.

"I worked really hard for this moment, I wanted to win really bad tonight. I need to say a big thank you to all the people that have been by my side over the past couple of years. All my coaches, teammates, friends and family and I'm just really happy with my performance today. I think I played really well.

"It's an emotional feeling that I have at the moment. We all go through injuries but it's been tough. I knew I could come back and get these wins and I'm really proud of myself. The best part of this is that I really enjoyed my time on court tonight."

The rest of the top eight seeds comfortably made their way through to the last eight with Toronto local Hollie Naughton providing the home interest in the last eight after coming through against compatriot Nicole Bunyan in four games.

The Cambridge Group of Clubs Classic, a men's Copper event, is also taking place this week in Toronto from the Cambridge Club and Toronto Athletic Club before moving to the glass court for the semi-finals and finals. Day two saw Daniel Poleshchuk score a big upset over No.4 seed Nathan Lake in four games to set up a last eight clash with only remaining home hope Salah Eltorgman.