Shapo and Felix into Wimbledon Quarterfinals

Welcome to the Canadian Corner where every week I will be following Canada's top tennis players with interesting stories, results and previews for upcoming matches or tournaments.

This week we will be recapping what has happened with the Canadians at Wimbledon which started back on the 28th of June and this week will be the second week and what we call the business end of the tournament.

While the likes of Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez tournament ended early, on the men's side both Felix Auger Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov are still alive.

Andreescu was drawn once again to face Alize Cornet of France in the first round after meeting in Berlin a couple weeks prior in a warm up event and it was indeed the French Women who beat her twice in a row.

It seems the world number 7 is going through a bit of a difficulty after recently splitting with her coach Sylvain Brunneau after a four year relationship that saw her win Indian Wells, Rogers Cup and the US Open back in 2019.

She didn’t seem comfortable on the grass with only one win in three grass court events and that win was a tough three sets win over an American qualifier in Eastbourne Christina Mchale.

We might see her return to form for the US hard court swing and it has been confirmed that the National Bank Open in Montreal will happen so she will be able to defend her title.

For Fernandez she lost to Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of Wimbledon after making the second round of Birmingham the week before losing to the Tunisian Ons Jabeur.

Fernandez's best surface once again seems to be a fast hard court so it will be interesting to follow her results in the US hard court swing as well as what she does in her home city of Montreal.

History Makers

We now focus our attention on the men and Canadian Tennis history was made yesterday on Manic Monday as both Shapovalov and Auger Aliassime won their fourth round matches.

This is the first time we will have two Canadians playing in the Wimbledon Quarterfinals and it doesn’t get any easier as Shapovalov will face Karen Khachanov while Auger Aliassime will face his good friend Matteo Berrettini.

If both are able to win, Shapovalov could potentially face the world number one in Novak Djokovic while the Montreal native Auger Aliassime could get a rematch with the great Roger Federer.

If people don’t remember, Auger Aliassime faced Federer in Halle in their first ever meeting the week before Wimbledon and it was the Canadian who ended up beating in three sets.

Both matches are scheduled for Wednesday and can be seen on TSN.

Elias Laradi contributes to The Slice from Montreal, Canada