Canadians Try Again in Cincinnati

Welcome to another edition of the Canadian Corner brought to you by The Slice and in this week's edition we will recap a crazy week of tennis at home in Montreal and Toronto with the National Bank Open while previewing the next 1000 series in Cincinnati, the Western and Southern Open.

Canadian Boys Stumble

On the men's side things didn’t go as planned as both Felix Auger Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov went out in their first matches to tough opposition in Dusan Lajovic and Frances Tiafoe.

In regards to the women in Montreal it was actually a pretty good week as three players were in the main draw Leylah Fernandez, Rebecca Marino, and of course the defending champion Bianca Andreescu.

Fernandez was sent packing the first round by the British qualifier Harriet Dart and in the following round Andreescu beat Dart and ended up reaching the third round before falling to the Tunisian Ons Jabeur.

Andreescu unfortunately had a bit of deja vu in a bad way as she was suffering from a toe injury before the match and once again slipped and fell and was seen by the trainer to have it taped during the match.

After the loss in her post match press conference she was very emotional trying to explain the bad luck she has got this year with injuries and covid and hopefully should be back next week in Mason, Ohio.

I thought we would end on a positive note with the story of the week being Rebecca Marino who had the best week of her career entering the draw as a wild card beating the number 16 seed Madison Keys in round one and following it up with another huge win over Paula Badosa.

She would eventually fall to Aryna Sabalenka the tournament number one seed in the third round but this week could potentially lead to bigger and better things down the road for Marino.

Cincinnati Preview

This week is the Western and Southern Open being held at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio which is a suburb of Cincinnati and in this combined ATP/WTA event we have Auger Aliassime and Shapovalov while on the women's side we have Fernandez and Andreescu.

Fernandez the Montreal native was able to make it through qualifying beating two Romanians in Irina Camelia Begu and Gabriela Elena Ruse and will now face Alison Riske in round one.

Bianca is the number seven seed and has a first round bye and will either face Karolina Muchova or Johanna Konta in round two. Auger Aliassime will face Marton Fucsovics in round one while Shapovalov who is the tournament number six seed will face Benoit Paire in his first match.

You're officially caught up and we look forward to recapping a big week on the US hardcourt swing next Monday on The Canadian Corner brought to you by The Slice.

Elias Laradi contributes to The Slice from Montreal, Canada