Leila Fernandez won the opener of the Doha tournament in singles and doubles

Canada's Leila Fernandez made it two wins at the Qatar Open women's tennis tournament on Monday.

Fernandez, from Laval, defeated 12th-seeded Lyudmila Samsonova of Russia 7-5, 7-6 (4) to advance to the second round of singles competition.

She then defeated the Italian duo of Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani 6-4, 3-6, 13-11 in the opening round of the doubles match with Georgia's Oksana Kalashnikova.

Fernandez broke early in the second set against Samsonova and looked to be on the verge of winning 5-2.

Samsonova responded with a break to cut the deficit to 5-4 and eventually force a tiebreak.

Fernandez regained control in the extra session and won her first match point chance when Samsonova hit long on Fernandez's serve to seal the match in two hours and 10 minutes.

Fernandez evened her career record 1-1 against Samsonova. The Russian won his first match in the second round of the 2022 US Open.

Next up for Fernandez is Spain's Paula Badosa.

Later, Fernandez and Kalashnikova survived a tough challenge from Errani and Paolini to claim the first win of their partnership.

Fernandez and Kalashnikova won 49.3 percent of the points available in the match, but 54.2 percent in the deciding set.

They now face the top seeded team of Belgium's Elise Mertens and Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei.

– This Canadian Press report was first published on February 12, 2024.