Leylah Fernandez hopes to reproduce US Open performance following third round win in Paris

Canadian tennis star Leylah Fernandez required almost three hours to fight past Belinda Bencic in their Friday encounter, but kept her poise to advance to the fourth round at Roland Garros.

The 17th seed escaped with a 7-5 3-6 7-5 victory, ensuring she reached the second week of a Grand Slam for the second time. This comes after her breakthrough performance at last year's US Open, where she finished runner-up to Emma Raducanu.

"After the US Open I did put a little bit more pressure on myself. That's normal, because I want to reproduce what I did in the US Open over and over again," said Fernandez. "I think after the first few tournaments, I accepted that I will not be playing the same way every single time. I will just have to find solutions and keep working hard. Over the course of the year I have just been sticking to that, just putting my head down and just grinding it out every day.

"The first five months of 2022 is definitely some ups and downs, but our team and our spirit is always high. We always want to improve. We don't see it as -- how do I say this? -- as a failure, the first five months. I see it more as I've got a lot to improve and I can just get better.

"Because that's the beauty of tennis, that we have a tournament every week and I can just keep working on some technical things, some tactical things. If it works, that's great. If it doesn't work, we can just go back to the drawing board and get ready for the upcoming weeks and tournaments."

The victory marked her second straight win over Bencic, as she defeated the Swiss star in the 2020 Billie Jean King qualifiers. Fernandez will face the in-form Amanda Anisimova in the round of 16, who advanced after her opponent, Karolina Muchova, was forced to retire mid-match due to injury.