Sixteen players fought through qualifying to reach the main draw in Toronto. Two of them are still standing.
That collapse isn’t really about the qualifiers doing anything wrong. It’s about how kind this draw has been to the players seeded into it in the first place.
Only two seeds inside the top 16 have lost so far, Linda Noskova and Sorana Cirstea.
In a WTA 1000 field this deep, that’s an astonishing number.
From Sixteen to Two in Three Rounds
The qualifying class arrived with real depth. Getting through it hasn’t been enough.
In the first round, only four qualifiers beat a non-qualifying opponent outright.
Moyuka Uchijima, Sloane Stephens, Kayla Day and Maya Joint all did it.
Three more advanced by drawing each other, guaranteeing a qualifier would survive regardless of the result. Lanlana Tararudee beat Emerson Jones. Rebecca Sramkova beat Anna Blinkova. Alina Korneeva beat Polina Kudermetova, who retired early. That’s seven qualifiers into the second round, out of sixteen who started.
The second round was worse. Uchijima ran into Aryna Sabalenka and lost in straight sets. Stephens fell to Belinda Bencic. Day pushed Coco Gauff to 5-7 in the second but came up short. Sramkova lost a decider to Diana Shnaider. Tararudee’s run ended without her even taking the court, a walkover that didn’t go her way.
Only two survived.
Alina Korneeva beat Emma Navarro in straight sets. Maya Joint beat 14th seed Sorana Cirstea, 6-4, 6-4.
Both play today.
Korneeva opens the day‘s action against Iva Jovic.
Joint plays Liudmila Samsonova later on, in the match that’s actually worth building a preview around.
Maya Joint Is Having the Week Her Season Needed
Joint’s 2026 on hard courts has mostly been a season to forget.
She lost in the first or second round at the Australian Open, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and Indian Wells.
She lost at Prague. She lost at Memphis too, in three sets, to Kristina Liutova. Liutova went on to win that tournament as a qualifier herself.
Across the whole season, hard courts have not been where Joint’s game has clicked.
Toronto has been different from the first ball.
She survived qualifying. She beat Yuliia Starodubtseva from a set down in her first main-draw match. She beat a seeded, in-form Cirstea in straight sets right after.
Two wins over legitimate opposition, back to back, isn’t something Joint’s 2026 hard-court season had produced before this week.
Whatever’s clicking right now, it’s real.
Samsonova Is the Steadier Story, Which Makes This Interesting
Liudmila Samsonova hasn’t had Joint’s rough patch. She also hasn’t had a standout season.
She reached the quarterfinal in Washington a week ago. That included a win over sixth seed Madison Keys before she fell to Shnaider.
Her ranking has spent most of 2026 hovering in the same general neighborhood, generally around the top 50. She hasn’t pushed much higher or fallen much lower.
She has arrived in Toronto in the same tidy form. She has beaten two very solid opponents to get here, Janice Tjen and 22nd seed Barbora Krejcikova.
Put the two 2026 seasons on hard court side by side and neither player has an obvious edge walking into this one.
Samsonova brings the steadier resume. Joint brings the hotter hand, right now, on the surface that has given her the most trouble all year. It’s genuinely anybody’s match.
The Bigger Picture Hasn’t Changed
Whatever happens between Joint and Samsonova, it won’t change the tournament’s larger story so far.
Toronto has belonged to the players who didn’t have to fight through qualifying to get here.
Just two seeds out of the top 16 are gone.
Only two qualifiers are left standing.
The draw has made its preference clear early. Maya Joint, at least, has given it a reason to notice her anyway. Samsonova might have other thoughts.