McNally vs Maria — the slice meets the surface that suits it least
Preview · National Bank Open, Toronto (WTA 1000) · First round · 3 August 2026
Thirteen months ago these two contested a title match on grass in Newport, and Caty McNally came from a set down to win it. They meet again in very different circumstances: an outdoor hard court in Toronto, a schedule compressed by Sunday’s rain, and a second-round prize that has changed character entirely since Wimbledon. The winner walks into Linda Nosková, the sixth seed and the newly crowned Wimbledon champion, playing her first tournament since lifting that trophy.
The matchup
Tatjana Maria’s game is one of the most distinctive on tour and one of the most surface-dependent. The sliced backhand, the low bounce, the constant invitation to opponents to generate their own pace — it is a method that has produced remarkable things on grass, including the Queen’s Club title in 2025 as a qualifier at 37 and a run to the Eastbourne final this June, where Madison Keys stopped her. On a medium-paced hard court, where the ball sits up and the slice loses much of its bite, the same shots ask far less of the opponent.
McNally is 24, ranked inside the top 80 and touched a career high in the high 40s in June. She is a natural doubles player — nine tour titles, two US Open finals, a top-50 doubles ranking — and that shows in a game built on returning early, taking the ball on the rise and finishing at the net. Crucially, she has been through this puzzle before and solved it, if only after a scare.
Form & conditions
Their 2026 hard-court ledgers point in opposite directions. Maria has been comfortably a losing player on the surface this year while thriving on grass; McNally has hovered around even, which at this level counts as functional. Maria did arrive with a win already banked, coming through Toronto’s single qualifying round against Canada’s Isabella Marton without much fuss, and she reached the third round at Wimbledon before Ekaterina Alexandrova ended it in straight sets. McNally lost in the second round there to Elena Rybakina, which is no disgrace.
Toronto in early August is warm and often humid, and the Sobeys Stadium courts are not especially quick. That combination flattens the ball and takes away exactly the skidding, awkward bounce Maria needs. It also means longer rallies, which is not a trivial consideration for a player who turns 39 later this week.
The deciding factor
Whether McNally is willing to move forward. Against Maria the losing pattern is obvious: stand back, wait for pace that never comes, over-hit. McNally’s instinct is to shorten points and take the net, and on a surface that rewards that instinct she should not have to reinvent anything. If she drifts into baseline trading, Maria’s variety will start to look clever again.
The call
Lean McNally, with medium confidence. She has the surface, the H2H, the legs and a game plan that already worked once. Maria’s craft and her qualifying win keep this from being a formality, but the conditions are pulling firmly one way.
