Emotional Amanda Anisimova breaks down enroute to Canadian Open defeat as poor form continues

Amanda Anisimova's torrid 2026 continues to get worse as she felt the effects of it on court during a painful 6-2, 6-4 defeat against Elina Svitolina at the Canadian Open.

The American is going into what is a crucial period with a lot of points to defend. After failing to make many inroads on her Wimbledon run from 2025, she has fallen to the cusp of the top 10. Seemingly once so secured after her brilliant campaign last year, she is now in trouble of falling out of it.

This reality could come to fruition with the tournaments coming up if she cannot find her A-game. For the time being, her focus was the Canadian Open in Toronto and she had a tough matchup against Elina Svitolina.

Anisimova got fortunate with her opening match with a walkover against Lanlana Tararudee before edging past Nikola Bartunkova in three sets. She was not able to raise the level against Svitolina, and went out with a whimper.

It started dreadfully for the former World No.3. She collected just six points in the opening four games as Svitolina stormed out into a 4-0 advantage. Anisimova finally got on the board but could not find any joy against the Ukrainian serve, thus losing the first set in a convincing manner.

It went from bad to worse at the start of the second set. Svitolina again established a double-break buffer before Anisimova this time managed to respond, breaking back to make it 3-1. That did not last long as Svitolina would win the next two games and was perilously close to reaching the quarter-finals.

The 2017 champion looked to get the match wrapped up sooner rather than later, but failed to get it done in the next game. This was despite her creating four match points, none of them taken. Anisimova would win three games in a row to limit the damage and possibly start a comeback. That was snuffed out by Svitolina with a hold to love to seal the win and end what hopes Anisimova had in Toronto.

During that final set, it could be clearly seen how much Anisimova was affected by this performance. Not playing anywhere her best, in a trend of this year, she was sitting on her chair trying to compose herself before stepping back onto court.

Shaking her head, she then buried it into her towel in an emotional state, visibly upset before getting up and continuing the match.

Seemingly nothing has gone right for the 24-year-old this year as she continues to flounder. Her year started well, reaching the quarter-finals of the Australian Open before a run to the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships after a short and brief title defence in Qatar ended.

Consecutive last-16 exits in the Sunshine swing showed that not all was good. injury prevented her from competing in much of the clay season as she made a return to Roland Garros, being one of the big names to exit really early.

Wimbledon was the first big tournament she had to defend in terms of points. A finalist from last year, the best she could do was was a third round loss to Madison Keys. The next tournament was the Canadian Open, which has now also ended as she looks towards bigger tournaments.

The Cincinnati Open comes next with the US Open another Grand Slam final she has to replicate. If not, a sharp ranking drop will occur, and it could get much worse. Last year Anisimova also won the China Open while reaching the semi-finals of the WTA Finals. Ranked 21st in the race, things are not going well for Anisimova who desperately needs to seek some better form sooner rather than later.