Amanda Anisimova won her first match back since Wimbledon at the Canadian Open, beating Czech player Nikola Bartunkova.
After advancing via a walkover in the second round, Anisimova‘s campaign at the WTA 1000 event started in round three, where she came back from a set down to defeat Bartunkova, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4.
The American enjoyed the best season of her career in 2025, reaching two Grand Slam finals and winning two WTA 1000 tournaments.
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But she has not been able to emulate her heroics from last year in 2026, with Anisimova slipping from third in the WTA rankings to 10th in the world.
With the North American hard court swing now underway, the 24-year-old revealed she has been lacking enjoyment in her tennis recently.

Amanda Anisimova speaks candidly after winning in Toronto
Asked in her post-match press conference after beating Bartunkova about the amount of points she has to defend during the swing, Anisimova said: “I feel like I’m past that point with like the points and everything.”
Anisimova will have to defend 1300 WTA points at the US Open, having made the final of the hard-court major last year.
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She continued: “I’m just trying to find my game, and, yeah, find myself on the court. I feel like it’s been a really long year.
“I’m trying to find my enjoyment as well. I think that was really important for me today is that I felt like I was myself again on the court. I was kind of missing that for the last few months.
“Yeah, I’m really happy to be back with my old coach Rick [Vleeshouwers]as well. I feel like we’ve had a really fun week here so far and just looking forward to hopefully doing well for the rest of the year.”
Anisimova recently reunited with former coach Hendrik Vleeshouwers, having ended their near-two-year-long partnership earlier this season.
“But no pressure, expectations,” said Anisimova. “I think the most important thing is just having fun and just trying to find my game again.”

Amanda Anisimova describes her relationship with her coach
Asked why she split with Vleeshouwers in the first place, Anisimova said: “I’ve already mentioned the reasonings for parting ways.
“I feel like I was kind of missing what we had kind of last year, like that energy and that connection that we have.
“With the break now, it was good that we had some space, and we learned kind of what went wrong towards the end.
“I take a lot of responsibility for that. I feel like our closeness kind of let me spiral in some ways, and kind of act infectiously at times.
“So, yeah I feel like the fact that we’ve had some space and had some time apart actually really helped us.
“We talked about that this week. How we both agree that we’ve learned a lot and, I don’t know, we just seem like both more calm, and that we’ve learned a lot from the experiences last year.
“Yeah, he’s just someone that really cares about me as a person, and cares about having fun off the court, which really suits me, especially as a player.”
Anisimova will take on Elina Svitolina in the fourth round of the Canadian Open.
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