Mboko, Fernandez set all-Canadian quarterfinal meeting in Strasbourg

Victoria Mboko and Leylah Fernandez set up an all-Canadian quarterfinal matchup at the Internationaux de Strasbourg with contrasting second-round victories on Tuesday.

No. 7 seed Fernandez battled past Magdalena Frech 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in 2 hours and 48 minutes; No. 1 seed Mboko followed her on Court Patrice Dominguez with a 6-4, 6-3 defeat of home wild card Lois Boisson to notch her first clay-court win of the season.

Strasbourg: Scores | Draws | Order of play

Both Mboko and Boisson, last year's Roland Garros semifinalist, were seeking to shake off rust. Mboko underwent surgery to remove her wisdom teeth after Miami; she began her clay-court swing in Madrid, falling to Caty McNally in her opener, then withdrew from Rome due to gastrointestinal illness.

Madrid also marked Boisson's return to action following a seven-month hiatus due to leg and arm injuries. Having lost the first three matches of her comeback (to Peyton Stearns in Madrid, Katerina Siniakova in Rome and Dominika Salkova in the Parma WTA 125), the Frenchwoman got her season off and running with a 6-3, 7-6(4) win over Wang Xinyu in the Strasbourg first round on Sunday.

Their lack of match play was evident in the first set, in which they combined for 40 unforced errors (24 for Boisson, 16 for Mboko) but just two winners off the ground (both from Boisson). Matters improved in the second, which repeated the same pattern as the first -- Boisson capturing the first break early on, Mboko immediately breaking back and then raising her game to get a second decisive break -- but with higher-quality tennis.

Particularly impressive from Mboko, 19, were her 71% first serve percentage, her judicious net approaches, and her cool head in slotting a backhand pass past Boisson in the best rally of the match -- one that brought up break point at 2-2, a game she duly converted.

"She has really good results on clay and I knew it wasn't going to be very easy," Mboko said in her on-court interview. "I just wanted to stay there as much as I can, make it very physical ... It's not easy to hit with power and try to be consistent, but I just wanted to stay with my game and try to step into the court as much as I could, because that's how I like to play."

Mboko will face former US Open finalist Fernandez for the second time, having won their first meeting 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 in last year's Hong Kong semifinals. Fernandez, 23, blended patience and creativity to get past Frech's gritty defense; her drop shot was the star of the show, and the audacious timing in rallies with which she pulled it off frequently caught the Pole off guard. Fernandez also had to hold off a late-stage comeback attempt by Frech, who raised her aggression levels to pull back from 5-1 to 5-4 in the third set.

There was joy for another home wild card earlier on Tuesday, though, as Diane Parry came from 4-2 down in both sets to defeat Emma Raducanu 6-4, 7-6(4) to continue her strong form following last week's Paris WTA 125 title. Parry was unable to serve out the match twice, at 5-4 and 6-5, but held her nerve to get over the line in the tiebreak.

Former US Open champion Raducanu was contesting her first match since Indian Wells, having been sidelined due to post-viral fatigue.