Canadian Men Stumble in Washington and Toronto

In this week's edition of the Canadian Corner brought to you by The Slice we will look back at a busy week last week for the Canadian tennis players while also previewing the National Bank Open in Montreal and Toronto.

Wrapping Up Washington

Let's start with the men and this week we had Vasek Pospisil and Felix Auger Aliassime in Washington, DC the US capital for The Citi Open being held at Rock Creek Park.

Vasek Pospisil needed three sets in his opening round match to dispatch the Ecuadorian qualifier Emilio Gomez 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 but was sent packing the next round by the American Sebastien Korda, the number 12 seed in straight sets 7-5, 6-4.

In regards to the Montreal native Auger Aliassime he was the number two seed in the draw and extracted some revenge on the Italian Andreas Seppi who had beaten him in round one of French Open by beating him in three tough sets 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.

After the match he told The Slice if he needed a match like that to get himself going into a tournament.

“ I wanted to find a way to comeback in the match, I think getting that break in the second set helped me a lot, I think I served a little bit better and I put more volume and height on my shot plus I was more patient because In the first set I was hitting too quickly missing a lot of shots so I think the combination of all of that and digging deep physically and mentally allowed me to come back nicely in the match and to finish strongly in the first set so I am happy how things turned around in the first set”.

He would end up being upset in the third round by the American Jenson Brooksby in straight sets 7-6 (4), 7-5.

On the women's side we had Rebecca Marino playing at a WTA 125 event in Concord, MA while Gaby Dabrowksi was in San Jose playing at the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic.

Marino faced Magdalena Frech of Poland in the first round and lost to her in straight sets 6-3, 7-6 (4).

Dabrowski was paired with Luisia Stefani in the doubles draw and ended up winning the title beating the team of Darija Jurak of Croatia and Andreja Klepac of Slovenia 6-1, 7-5 in the final.

National Bank Open

This week is the National Bank Open in Montreal and Toronto with the women in Montreal and the men in Toronto. Starting with the men we had four men in the qualifying draw.

Out of the four men in qualifying only Brayden Schnur managed to make it through qualifying. On the women's side we had six women in the qualifying draw but none of them made it to the main draw.

In the main draw we have Felix Auger Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov earning first round byes as the number 9 seed and number 5 seed respectively while Schnur will face Lloyd Harris, Vasek Pospisil will face Tommy Paul.

Felix and Shapovalov unfortunately went out in their first matches to Dusan Ljaovic and Fances Tiafoe. A disappointing result for the two young Canadians who were the home favourites.

Womens Draw

In the women’s draw in Montreal we have Leylah Fernandez and of course the defending champion Bianca Andreescu who is in town on a trial with a new coach Sven Groenveld.

The connection was made when Andreescu switched agents to IMG and her new agent had a relationship with Groenveld and that’s how they met. Andreescu is the number two seed and has a first round bye and will either face Harriet Dart or fellow Canadian Leylah Fernandez.

Rebecca Marino made a spectacular run to the 3rd round taking out Madison Keys. In the second stage of her career she’s feeling great with where she is at physically, mentally, and game wise.

Look out for next week's edition as we will recap the week in Canada and look ahead to the next masters 1000 event in Cincinnati.

Elias Laradi contributes to The Slice from Montreal, Canada