Leylah Fernandez drops 3-set thriller to top seed Rybakina in Stuttgart quarterfinal

Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., fell 7-6 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (6) to top seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in a quarterfinal Friday at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany.

Rybakina improved to 3-2 against the Canadian in a match that lasted three hours.

The final-set tiebreak was tied six times before Rybakina won the last two points.

Fernandez converted 4 of 8 break points, while Rybakina went 3-for-14.

Rybakina finished with a 7-6 edge in aces.

Rybakina will face sixth seed Mirra Andreeva of Russia in the semifinals Saturday.

Canada's Denis Shapovalov was defeated by Slovak qualifier Alex Molcan 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the BMW Open tennis tournament in Munich.

Molcan scored a big break to go up 4-3 in the second set, winning a game in which Shapovalov committed two of his seven double faults, and didn't lose a point on serve the rest of the way.

Shapovalov had broken to tie the set 3-3 before ceding the advantage with his poor service game.

It was just the second meeting between the players, with Shapovalov winning their previous match in 2022 at the Qatar Open. Molcan improved to 11-2 on clay this season and will next face second seed Ben Shelton of the United States.

Shapovalov, from Richmond Hill, Ont., entered the ATP 500 tournament ranked 39th in the world. He has an 8-8 record on the season.