Canadians Bow Out Early in Tokyo

In this week's edition of the Canadian Corner we will review the previous week and the beginning of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with Felix Auger Aliassime, Leylah Fernandez, Gabriella Dabrowski, and Sharon Fichman.

Felix faces big disappointment with his 1st round defeat, but still has a chance at a medal in Mixed Doubles/

Day one featured Leylah Fernandez going up against the Ukrainain Dayanna Yastremska and after two hours and five minutes it was indeed the Montreal native taking a hard fought 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 win to set up a second round encounter with the Czech Barbora Krejcikova.

Fernandez found herself down 0-40 in the first game of the third and final set but managed to fight back and win six games off the trot for her first ever win at the Olympics.

Canadian Defeats

Her run ended unfortunately against the in form Czech Krejcikova as she lost in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 but she should take this result as a positive one to win a round at 18 years old shows the future looks very good.

Canada unfortunately lost it’s doubles team on day one as well as the duo of Dabrowski and Fichman lost to the doubles team from Brazil of Laura Pigossi and Luisa Stefani in straight sets 7-6, 6-4.

In regards to Auger Aliassime he was scheduled to face Andy Murray in the first round but mere hours before the match was scheduled to start Murray pulled out with a quad strain and decided he would focus on doubles.

The move seemed to throw Auger Aliassime off as he was upset by his replacement Max Purcell of Australia 6-4, 7-6 in sweltering heat conditions in the Japanese capital.

A lot of players have been complaining about the heat in Tokyo with temperatures hovering around 35 degrees celsius. Auger Aliassime will now focus his attention to mixed doubles where he is paired with Dabrowski looking to make a run at a medal.

Raonic Back in Action

This week will also feature the return of Milos Raonic who hasn’t played since the Miami Masters in March will be returning to the hard courts at the Truist Atlanta Open in the state of Georgia.

He is actually the top seed in the draw and will have a first round bye and face the winner of either Trent Bryde or Brandon Nakashima in the second round of the tournament.

Elias Laradi contributes to The Slice from Montreal, Quebec