First Serve: Canadians on the pro tours this week
It's a bit of a scrambled time of the season in pro tennis, when the top tier of players might prefer to have a break after the Australian Open before the big American double in Indian Wells and Miami, but a lot of them are playing.
Players play one match on one continent, then scramble to get to their first-round matches halfway across the world (how does a Thailand-Dubai, or a Sao Paulo-Marseille commute sound to you?)
Canada's Eugenie Bouchard, after a disappointing loss in her first match in Antwerp, Belgium – her first match under new coach Sam Sumyk – was officially granted a wild card into a bigger event in Dubai last Friday.
By Saturday, when the draw came out, she was out, officially because of an arm injury. By Sunday, she was in New York attending the NBA All-Star game. Eleven of the top 15 women are on hand in Dubai (Serena Williams, still suffering from the illness that plagued her in Australia, also was a last-minute withdrawal).
The nature of the arm injury? The prognosis? Eh Game has been efforting since Saturday to find out more, but communication with Team Bouchard, never great, has become bureaucratic and even more difficult to come by under her new IMG management. Word out of Belgium was that Bouchard practiced very little during her time there. And there was plenty of time. She arrived on Saturday; her first and only match wasn't until Thursday night. The Canadian's next scheduled event is in Monterrey, Mexico next week.
As for the other top Canadian, Milos Raonic, he's following up his semi-final effort in Rotterdam in Marseille, where he is the top seed at a smaller tournament there and has a first-round bye. Countryman Vasek Pospisil plays his first-round match against Robin Haase of the Netherlands Tuesday.
Gloucester, Ont.'s Gabriela Dabrowski followed up her singles debut at Fed Cup in Quebec with a good effort to get through the singles qualifying in Dubai. But she lost in the first round of the main draw to Turkish wild card Cagla Buyukakcay.
The other Fed Cup rookie, Françoise Abanda, returns to action this week at a $25,000 ITF tournament in Surprise, Arizona. She drew No. 2 seed Jovana Jaksic (who also is her doubles partner) in the first round.
Frank Dancevic is at a Challenger tournament in Wroclaw, Poland, while 21-year-old Filip Peliwo is at another Futures-level tournament in Tunisia.
Follow their results all week long here.
