Volynets vs Stephens — a champion in the queue, an opponent with no sleep
Preview · National Bank Open, Toronto (WTA 1000) · Qualifying first round · 1 August 2026
The most eye-catching name on the entire qualifying sheet is a former US Open champion, and she is here in the first round because that is where her ranking now puts her. Sloane Stephens against Katie Volynets is an all-American meeting between a player rebuilding from a long way down and one who has quietly made qualifying draws her natural habitat. Both flew in from Memphis. Only one of them was still playing in the early hours of this morning.
The matchup
Volynets is the fifth seed, 24 years old, and has spent 2026 doing the unglamorous work well. She reached the second round at Roland Garros with a win over Clara Burel, made a WTA 125 quarter-final in Paris beating Emma Navarro along the way, and came through qualifying at both ’s-Hertogenbosch and Nottingham on grass, winning main-draw matches at each. Her ranking hovers around the edge of the top 100, below a career high in the fifties, but the pattern is consistent: she wins the matches she is supposed to win in this format, and she is rarely blown off court.
Stephens is 33 and carries the weight of a career that peaked at world number three, a US Open title and career prize money north of sixteen million. That is not where she is now. Her ranking has fallen far outside the top 100, and 2026 has been hard: she lost in Australian Open qualifying, went out early at Indian Wells and Charleston, and lost in qualifying in Austin. There have been flickers, wins over Tatjana Maria in Linz and Jennifer Brady in Miami, but they have been isolated. They have never played each other.
Form & conditions
Memphis shaped this. Volynets reached the quarter-finals there and lost to Darja Vidmanová 6-4 6-7(5) 6-1 in the early hours of this morning, a three-set grind in which she levelled the match in a second-set tie-break and then fell away in the decider. She then had to travel and turn straight around. Stephens lost to the same opponent in the round of 16 on 31 July, which gives her a full extra day and a night’s sleep, and in a match between two players separated by this much ranking distance, that matters more than usual.
The Toronto hard courts are quick and reward first-strike tennis. Stephens at her best returns as well as anyone of her generation and can still hurt a rally player with her forehand, but her movement and her willingness to grind have been the parts that have faded.
The deciding factor
Length of match. A short, sharp contest favours Volynets, who is the more reliable striker over two sets and has the better recent results by a distance. Anything that drags into a third set tilts towards the fresher legs, and the fresher legs here belong to the former champion.
The call
Volynets is the pick on level and on season-long evidence, but the recovery gap is real and the confidence is low-medium rather than anything firmer, because a Stephens who serves well and shortens points is capable of ending this before fatigue is even tested.
