Laval's Leylah Annie Fernandez surges into third round of French Open

Leylah Annie Fernandez kept her winning streak at Roland Garros alive Thursday as she outlasted Polona Hercog of Slovenia 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 in the second round of the French Open tennis championships.

The 18-year-old from Laval has won eight consecutive matches in Paris going back to her victory in the French Open junior event last year. She faces a tough match in the third round Saturday when she plays seventh-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.

While Fernandez joined Westmount’s Eugenie Bouchard in the third round, there are no Canadians remaining in the men’s draw after ninth-seeded Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., was upset by Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-3, 3-6, 8-6 in a match that lasted a shade over five hours.

The 5-foot-4 Fernandez gave away eight inches and 11 years of experience, but she proved steadier in the deciding set as Hercog’s serve failed her.

Fernandez opened the third set with a service break when Hercog double-faulted to end a game that ran more than 13 minutes. The Slovenian needed only three minutes to break back, but that was the last game she won.

Fernandez was her own worst enemy in the second set when she was broken at 3-3. She served four double faults in the game and was broken again in her next service game to give the set to Hercog.

It was Fernandez’s fifth win over a top-50 opponent this year and she boosted her WTA ranking to a career-high No. 86.

Shapovalov had to battle from behind for most of the match, but he served for the match at 5-4 in the fifth set and again at 6-5, but was unable to hold his serve.

It was first five-set win of his career for the 27-year-old Carballes Baena and the first time he has reached the third round of a Grand Slam.

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Eugenie Bouchard's strong run ends at French Open

Where does Eugenie Bouchard go from here?

During the past two months, the 26-year-old from Westmount has shown that she can still play tennis at an elite level and has climbed up to No. 140 in the WTA rankings after starting the year outside the top 300.

But there are few opportunities to improve on that ranking this year after losing to Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-3, 6-2 on Friday in the third round of the French Open.

The lucrative Asian Tour has been wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic and there are only a handful of European events remaining on the calendar before the new season is scheduled to get underway in January in Australia. The WTA added a Premier level event this month in Ostrava, Czech Republic. It has a limited 28-player draw and Bouchard would need a wild-card to get a spot in the main draw.

Bouchard received a wild-card into the French Open and justified her selection by winning two matches before running into the 19-year-old Swiatek.

The Pole used her power to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament for the third time in her young career. She hit 30 winners to eight for Bouchard. Most of the winners were the result of powerful ground strokes that kept Bouchard scrambling beyond the baseline, but four of them came on drop shots.

Bouchard had the only two aces of the match and had a higher first-serve percentage, but she was in trouble when she didn’t put her first serve in play. She won only three of 21 points on her second serve.

Leylah Annie Fernandez, an 18-year-old from Laval, is the only Canadian still alive in the singes events at Roland Garros. She has a tough test on Saturday when she plays seventh-seeded Petra Kvitova.

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Eugenie Bouchard reported to be dating Steelers QB Mason Rudolph

Eugenie Bouchard has been getting her tennis game back on track and now she apparently has a new boyfriend.

TMZ Sports confirmed Friday

that the Westmount native is dating Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback

Mason Rudolph

with a source close to the couple saying “the two began a romantic fling recently … and have gotten pretty serious.”

Bouchard posted a photo on Instagram this week from a restaurant in Pittsburgh with the caption “Pitt stop”, which was liked by Rudolph, who TMZ presumes took the photo.

Bouchard made it to the third round of a Grand Slam event for the first time since the 2017 at last week’s French Open, where she lost in the third round, 6-3, 6-2, to Poland’s Iga Swiatek.

View this post on Instagram

pitt stop

A post shared by Genie Bouchard (@geniebouchard) on Oct 6, 2020 at 9:41am PDT

“I felt like I played a very good opponent,” Bouchard told reporters in Paris. “She was putting pressure on me from the beginning. I tried to counter that and tried to put pressure back. But I was missing my shots by small margins and making some mistakes I haven’t really made in recent matches. I definitely felt a little off today.”

Bouchard was ranked 168th in the world heading into the French Open and was given a wild-card invitation. She reached a career-high No. 5 world ranking after reaching the Wimbledon final in 2014.

Bouchard’s game has improved recently and she reached the final of a clay-court tournament in Instanbul last month.

Bouchard is 26 and Rudolph is 25.

A few months ago, Bouchard tweeted that going through COVID-19 quarantine “would be a lot more fun with a boyfriend.”

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Bianca Andreescu forced to isolate prior to Australian Open

Bianca Andreescu’s return to competitive tennis has hit a snag after two people on a charter flight from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne tested positive for COVID-19.

Andreescu, who hasn’t played a match since she suffered a knee injury at the WTA Finals in October 2019, was among 24 players on the flight arranged by the organizers of next month’s Australian Open.

The 79 people aboard the flight were notified late Friday that a crew member and a passenger on the plane had tested positive on arrival in Melbourne. The passenger had provided a negative test within 72 hours of the flight’s departure.

On Saturday, Andreescu’s coach Sylvain Bruneau revealed that he was the passenger who tested positive. He said he followed the COVID protocols while in the Middle East and didn’t know how he was infected.

The players will be confined to their hotel room for 14 days and will not be able to take advantage of practice opportunities within the Melbourne bubble. They will finish their isolation in time to participate in one of the warm-up events scheduled for the week prior to the Australian Open but they will be at a distinct disadvantage because they will not have had access to practice or fitness facilities.

The 20-year-old Andreescu burst on the international scene in 2019 when she won the Rogers Cup and then took the U.S. Open to become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title. The knee injury, an unrelated leg injury and concern over COVID-19 forced her to skip the entire 2020 season.

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Andreescu, who is currently No. 7 in the WTA Tour rankings, had been training in Dubai while most of the other players on the flight had been playing in a WTA tournament in the Abu Dhabi.

Other players on the flight included Angelique Kerber, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ons Jabeur and Belinda Bencic.

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Auger-Aliassime looking for a new coach

Félix Auger-Aliassime is looking for a new coach to help take him to the next level.

Auger-Aliassime ended his six-year association with Guillaume Marx last month, saying that their collaboration had  “reached its limit.”

While Auger-Aliassime will continue to work with French coach Frédéric Fontang, he said he’s looking for a coach who has guided to a player to a Grand Slam or has won such a title as a player.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,”  Auger-Aliassime said Monday during a videoconference call. “It was time for me to seek new advice and have new challenges to take me to the next level.

“The way the points system is structured makes the Grand Slams crucial for the standings,” explained Auger-Aliassime.  “These four tournaments that have a higher priority than the other, and we are looking to find ways to put me in the best position for these four occasions, although I know that I shouldn’t neglect the rest of the calendar either.”

Auger-Aliassime said there’s no timeline for finding a new coach. It may be a difficult process because the number of people meet his criteria is limited, though the chance to work with a rising talent will be attractive.

For the second year in a row, the 20-year-old Montrealer finished the season at No. 21 in the ATP rankings and is the top-ranked player under the age of 21. He said he felt he made progress though his ranking remained the same.

“To reach three finals, to win a big doubles title in Paris and to reach the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time at the U.S. Open, these are positives,” said Auger-Aliassime. “There were ups and downs but I got positive feedback from this year. Most importantly, I was happy with the way I elevated my game and my maturity, how I grew as a person.”

Auger-Aliassime has yet to win an ATP Tour singles event, but he has reached six finals. In his three finals appearances this year, he lost to top-10 players — Gaël Monfils in Rotterdam, Stefanos Tsitsipas in Marseille and Alexander Zverev in Cologne. At the U.S. Open, he beat former world No. 1 Andy Murray in the second round and lost to eventual champion Dominic Thiem in the round of 16.

Following the lead of good friend and compatriot Denis Shapovalov, Auger-Aliassime played more doubles events this year to improve his net game. That decision paid off big when he teamed with Hubert Hurcacz if Poland to win the title at the Paris Masters. It was only the second time they played together but they beat four seeded teams en route to the title.

While almost half the season was wiped out because of the virus, Auger-Aliassime banked more than US$1.14 million in official earnings.

Auger-Aliassime, who is currently quarantining at home in Montreal, said it was a difficult year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There was uncertainty at several points in the year over whether we were ever going to play again and, when I look at society in general and seeing what’s happening, I feel really privileged that I had a chance to play,” he said.

That uncertainty is carrying over to 2021. The next Grand Slam on the calendar is the Australian Open. It is scheduled to begin on Jan. 14 but that date seems unlikely. There are reports that it could be pushed back to February or March.  Australian officials said they hope to confirm a date in the next two weeks.

Canada's Rebecca Marino primed for Grand Slam comeback

Canadian tennis player Rebecca Marino is looking forward to playing in next month’s Australian Open after going through what she described as the “most challenging year of my whole life.”

Marino, 30, qualified for her first Grand Slam appearance since 2013 after going through an 18-month recovery from a career-threatening foot injury and the death of her father, Joe.

“My father was very important in my decision-making for my comeback,” Marino said Wednesday in a videoconference call from Melbourne. “His health problems and challenges inspired me. Considering 2020 was the most challenging year of my whole life, I’m proud to make it here.”

Marino was recovering from a torn plantar fascia when her father died of cancer last April at age 59.

“I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to compete again,” Marino said of her injury. “I started on crutches, I couldn’t put any pressure on my foot, and then I walked with a boot for two months. I could barely walk for 15 minutes, then it transitioned to 30 minutes and then an hour. In March or April I got on the court again, and by September I wasn’t having any pain on the court and there was no pain after, and I used the few months until now to get my conditioning back.”

Marino grew up in Vancouver but moved to Montreal in 2009 to refine her game at the National Training Centre. She reached a career-high No. 38 in 2011, but mental and physical fatigue forced her to walk away from the game shortly after her last Grand Slam appearance, at the 2013 Australian Open.

Marino remembers the sun was shining, but doesn’t remember the details of her straight-set loss to Shuai Peng.

“I think I was already contemplating taking a step away from tennis and I blotted it out of my mind,” she said.

Marino went back home, studied English literature, tried her hand at rowing, found help in a support group and became an advocate for mental health issues.

She breezed through Australian Open qualifying in Dubai with three straight-set wins and reset her goals for Melbourne.

“I have to keep pushing my goals higher and higher,” she said. “I’d like to at least win a round, but whether I win a round or not, I just want to leave it all on the court and maximize the chance I have here.”

Marino said she was fortunate there were no COVID-19 cases on her charter flight to Australia and she is allowed to train while in quarantine. She’s in a two-player cohort with Russian Kamilla Rakhimova and they are allowed 90 minutes in the gym, two hours on court and an hour of stretching. She will play in a warm-up tournament beginning Sunday.

“The courts are quite fast and that suits my game, because I have a good serve and play a power game from the baseline,” she said.

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Tennis Canada banks new sponsor for Canadian Open championships

If you’re running a major deficit because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it pays to have a bank as your partner.

Tennis Canada announced Tuesday that National Bank has secured the naming rights for the Canadian Open professional tennis tournaments in Montreal and Toronto. The 10-year deal starts in August although there is uncertainty over whether there will be limited attendance.

Rogers, which has held the naming rights for the past 20 years, will remain as the presenting sponsor and Rogers Sportsnet has a new five-year deal to televise and stream the event.

Tennis Canada CEO Michael Downey said the bank’s support will extend beyond the marquee tournaments and will include loans to help the non-profit weather a financial storm. The cancellation of the 2020 Rogers Cup events resulted in a $17-million loss and further losses are inevitable this year.

“We’re not drowning, we’re treading water and we hope to be swimming,” said Downey. While he was optimistic, Downey said it will take four or five years for Tennis Canada to get back on solid financial footing.

The tournaments in Montreal — the women are here this summer — will be branded Omnium Banque Nationale, while the Toronto event will be the National Bank Open.

National Bank will continue its sponsorship of Challenger events in Granby, Saguenay, Drummondville, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, and hopes to expand its reach across Canada. It is also committed to fostering programs for girls and women.

Downey cited a Canadian Women & Sport report that showed one in three adolescent girls dropped out of the sport, while the corresponding number for boys was one out of 10.

“We also want to do a better job of developing women coaches,” said Downey. “We’re currently at 30 per cent, but that’s not the 50 per cent we want.”

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Eugène Lapierre, the chairman of the Montreal event, has several meetings planned during the next month to get an idea of what to expect this summer at the Jarry Tennis Centre.

“We have a meeting with Tourisme Montréal and I know they want to see us and the (Formula One) race return,” said Lapierre. “We have a little more time than the F1 people because our tournament is in August. We’ll be talking to Santé Québec about the protocol that would allow us to welcome fans. We’ve drawn up plans to create a bubble that would keep everybody safe.”

The spotlight during the next too weeks will be on Melbourne, where the Australian Open is being held after the players and coaches went through a two-week quarantine. A similar plan is impossible here because the event begins on Aug. 6 and many of the players will be arriving from Tokyo, where the Olympic tennis event is scheduled to end on Aug. 1.

Australia is allowing 30,000 fans a day, half the normal capacity.

The pandemic has had a major impact on the cohort of junior players and aspiring professionals. There haven’t been any junior tournaments in the past year and Tennis Canada recently cancelled national indoor events scheduled for next month.

There are 10 players at the National Training Centre at Jarry Park, which produced such current stars as Félix Auger-Aliassime, Milos Raonic and Bianca Andreescu, but they have been limited to internal competition. The men’s and women’s Challenger schedules have been severely impacted, while college tennis programs in the U.S. are slowly retuning after a nine-month hiatus.

Laval’s Alexis Galarneau was expecting to turn pro after earning all-America honours at North Carolina State. But, with no tournaments on the horizon, Galarneau is back at N.C. State, taking graduate courses and playing his final season of college tennis.

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Tennis: Bianca Andreescu ready for competition after 15-month hiatus

Sylvain Bruneau says Bianca Andreescu will be in “new territory” when she returns to competitive tennis after a 15-month hiatus.

After some false starts during the past year, Canada’s Andreescu will play Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania on Tuesday in the first round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

“This hasn’t unfolded the way we planned because we wanted two more weeks of preparation here and play in a lead-up tournament, which we weren’t able to do,” Bruneau said on a video-conference call from Melbourne. “We had a real good period leading up to our travel to Australia and then we’ve had nine or 10 days since she got out of quarantine she’s been able to practise daily and play a number of practice matches.

Andreescu and 46 other players had to isolate for 14 days when Bruneau, who has been her coach at the National Training Centre in Montreal since 2018, tested positive for COVID-19 after they flew on a charter flight from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne in mid-January.

Andreescu tore her meniscus while playing in the WTA Tour finals in October 2019. A planned comeback early last year was scuttled because of the pandemic and a comeback later in the year was called off because of a leg injury. She trained in her hometown of Mississauga and in Spain before setting up camp in Dubai in December.

The WTA opened its season in Abu Dhabi, but Andreescu decided not to play.

“We wanted to make sure that whenever she was going back to compete, she was not going to be almost ready, or 90 per cent ready, but 100 per cent ready,” Bruneau said. “That was the plan from the beginning. It was very tempting (because) it would have been good to play some matches before a big tournament like the Australian Open to break the ice, feel the pressure and all that. It was a bummer because we were right there, but we didn’t want to risk it.”

This isn’t the first time Andreescu has come back from an injury. She missed 10 weeks with a shoulder injury in 2019 before returning to beat Serena Williams to win the Canadian Open. A month later, she beat Williams again in the final of the U.S. Open to become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title.

Bruneau said the eighth-seeded Andreescu won’t have an easy match against Buzarnescu.

“They played two years ago in Acapulco (Andreescu won 6-2, 7-5), and she’s a very tricky player, a lefty,” Bruneau noted. “She lost in the qualifying and she’s here as a lucky loser, but she has been a Top 20 player.”

Andreescu is one of three Canadian women in the main draw. Leylah Annie Fernandez, the 18-year-old from Laval, has a tough match against 18th-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium Tuesday. Rebecca Marino, who won three matches in Doha to qualify for her first Grand Slam since the 2013 Australian Open, plays Aussie Kimberly Birrell.

In the men’s warm-up for the Open, Montrealer Félix Auger-Aliassime was upset by Britain’s Daniel Evans 6-2, 6-3 in the final of an ATP 250 event Sunday. Auger-Aliassime is 0-for-7 in ATP Tour finals.

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Tennis Canada development guru Louis Borfiga set to retire this fall

Louis Borfiga, the architect of Canada’s highly successful tennis development program, will retire this fall and return to France to spend more time with his family.

Borfiga arrived in Montreal in 2006 to join Tennis Canada as vice-president (high performance) and, a year later, he oversaw the establishment of the National Tennis Centre in Montreal. He played a role in the development of the very first group of players, including Milos Raonic and Rebecca Marino, as well as the next generation of talented professionals, including Montreal’s Félix Auger-Aliassime and Bianca Andreescu.

“Louis brought a culture of victory to tennis in Canada and helped establish a world-class system and structure with our partners,” said Hatem McDadi, Tennis Canada’s senior vice-president (tennis development). “He is a wise, generous, kind and humble man. He is a man with great values and principles whose concern for our athletes, coaches and partners is unparalleled.”

Canadian tennis hit new heights on Borfiga’s watch, reaching the Davis Cup final in 2019 and winning its first Grand Slam singles title when Andreescu was crowned the 2019 U.S. Open champion.

A native of Monaco, Borfiga joined Tennis Canada after leading a similar program in France, where he helped develop Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gaël Monfils, Gilles Simon, Nicolas Mahut and Julien Benneteau.

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