First Serve: Canadians on the pro tennis tours this week
Even with the top two Canadians idle until next week in Madrid, there is plenty of Canadian tennis going on.
And, in the case of the next wave, a lot of good results to boast about.
On Sunday, in the final of a big (ITF Grade 1) junior event in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, there was an all-Canadian singles final between Charlotte Robillard-Millette and Bianca Andreescu.
Robillard Millette, more than a year older at 16, prevailed 6-4, 7-5.
Here is some video of that match.
As you can see, a nice crowd on hand.
Robillard-Millette is the most successful, at the moment, of all the kids in the national training centre program based at Montreal's Uniprix Stadium. She was a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open juniors in January, in her first junior Grand Slam appearance.
To put it in perspective, the Beaulieu-sur-Mer event was a big tournament, but it didn't feature most of the world's top juniors; Robillard-Millette, seeded No. 9 there, is ranked No. 36 in the ITF junior rankings; Andreescu, the No. 9 seed, is ranked No. 70.
Also on Sunday, Katerina Kopcalic of Toronto, 17, won a Grade 3 ITF junior event in Tunisia. She's not at the national centre; neither is Andreescu, who is still just 14.
Robillard-Millette is on a roll. The previous week at a Grade 2 event in Istres, France, she also won the singles and reached the doubles final as well. At that event, the duo of Jack Mingjie Lin and Benjamin Sigouin (also of the NTC), won the boys' doubles.
Robillard-Millette, Andreescu and Katherine Sebov, who is nearly the same age as Robillard-Millette (both turned 16 in January) and until the next rankings come out, is neck-and-neck with her in the rankings, will represent Canada at the Junior Fed Cup Americas playoff in Boca Raton, Fla. this week. The Canadians wil also have teams in the boys' 16s, and in the boys' and girls' 14-and-under categories.
As always, the Canadians will have a tough time getting past the American squads if they want to make it to the big finals this fall; the 16s U.S. girls' team is led by Cici Bellis, who has just turned 16, has already been the No. 1-ranked junior in the world (she's currently No. 4) and is ranked No. 173 on the WTA Tour.
Back on the pro side, Vasek Pospisil finally begins his European clay-court season at an ATP tour event in Munich, Germany. It's probably the strongest of the three events this week (the others are in Istanbul and Estoril, Portugal), and Pospisil doesn't have an easy draw.
In the first round on Tuesday, he faces Austrian Dominic Thiem, a 21-year-old with a one-handed backhand ranked higher than Pospisil, at No. 44.
Frank Dancevic ended his swing through the Har-tru tournaments in the U.S. south with a lacklustre 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 loss to American Tennys Sandgren in Tallahassee, Fla. Monday.
Dancevic has done well at that tournament (he was a finalist in 2012 and 2014), but he played as though he was feeling the effects of two months on the road. Based in Belgrade, Serbia, Dancevic has been in North America since Davis Cup in Vancouver in early March. He's not entered in any tournaments until the French Open qualifying in mid-May.
There are several Canadian women in a $50,000 tournament in Charlottesville, Va. this week – including 18-year-old Françoise Abanda. Four more were in the qualifying, including Toronto's Maureen Drake.
Drake, 44, is making a comeback of sorts in her third tournament down in the southern U.S. She had the unfortunate luck of drawing American veteran Alexandra Stevenson in the first round of qualifying; both players, as it happens, had their best season in ... 1999, when Drake broke into the top 50 and Stevenson, as a teenager, made the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
The two faced each other at a tournament in Toronto last October. What are the odds? This time, on Sunday, Stevenson won, 6-2, 6-1.
Drake re-entered the WTA rankings computer Monday, checking in at No. 1027.
Bookmark this link to follow all the Canadian results this week.
