Venus Williams advances in 3-set win at Montreal

MONTREAL (AP) ― Venus Williams rebounded from a shaky second set to defeat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 in the first round of the Rogers Cup on Tuesday.

Elena Vesnina stepped in as a replacement for the ailing Andrea Petkovic and beat Camila Giorgi 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

The afternoon matches saw scoreboards go dark due to a long power outage that affected 200,000 customers in the area, but the matches went on uninterrupted.

Generators provided lighting as local favorite Eugenie Bouchard took the court for her second-round night match with Shelby Rogers.

Williams, who has played the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but never in Montreal, was on court in the early afternoon when the power went off.

“It was like going back to the southern California juniors,” she said. “But I tried to think of it as positive, like ‘this will be just like practice, so go ahead and relax. It will be a practice match.’ You try to play those mind games when you’re out there.”


Federer cruises through

TORONTO (AP) ― Roger Federer cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 victory over wild card Peter Polansky in the second round of the Rogers Cup, while Stan Wawrinka, Ernests Gulbis and Richard Gasquet also advanced in the U.S. Open warm up Tuesday.

Federer needed just 52 minutes to eliminate Canada’s Polansky, who beat 2013 Wimbledon finalist Jerzy Janowicz on Monday. The second-seeded Federer had a bye into the second round.

Federer said he’s normally not heartless when facing an overmatched opponent, but knew he needed to block that out.

“You never know when it can shift,” Federer said. “You feel a little bit and then you end up losing the match.”

Third-seeded Wawrinka rallied for a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Benoit Paire. No. 11 seed Gulbis moved into the second round with a 6-3, 6-4 win against Joao Sousa of Portugal. Gasquet beat local favorite Vasek Pospisil 7-5, 7-5.

“He has an extra motivation because it’s being home,” Gasquet said of Popisil. “It’s the same when I’m playing in France. But yeah he had big expectations on him, especially here in Toronto.”