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First Serve – Canadians on the pro tennis tours this week

Stephanie Myles
First Serve – Canadians on the pro tennis tours this week

The Canadian Fed Cup squad was caught in a bit of a dilemma last week, as the tie in Quebec City (and the week of practices and events leading up to it) conflicted with a very good $100,000 women's tournament close to home, in Midland, Mich.

The players chose their country, obviously (and there is some financial incentive to do so). But the result was that they wasted an opportunity to compete in a tournament that could help their individual careers. This week, there really aren't any tournaments they can play given their relatively low WTA Tour rankings. The two WTA Tour events held in St. Petersburg, Russia and in Taiwan were not options.

So they will be idle for another week.

The men, with the exception of Milos Raonic, return as Vasek Pospisil and Daniel Nestor compete at the ATP Tour 500-level tournament indoors in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Pospisil, whose Australian Open was a disappointment (a four-set loss to Gilles Simon in the first round of the men's singles), will face 18-year-old rising star Alexander Zverev in the first round.

Zverev had a hectic week last week at a tournament in Montpellier, France; he reached the semi-finals in the singles and the final in the doubles with his older brother Mischa. So Pospisil will be by far the fresher of the two. The 25-year-old also is in the doubles, with Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

Young Zverev is probably tired after a busy week in Montpellier, France last week – which is all to Pospisil's advantage.
Young Zverev is probably tired after a busy week in Montpellier, France last week – which is all to Pospisil's advantage.

Nestor, who reached the final of the Australian Open men's doubles two weeks ago, will team up with one of the players who defeated him that day, Great Britain's Jamie Murray. Murray's new partner Bruno Soares, a Brazilian, always heads back home for the South American clay-court swing this time of year and at the time of the entry deadline, Nestor's partner Radek Stepanek didn't have a high-enough ranking to get into Rotterdam. The two will reunite in Dubai next week.

Nestor's ATP Tour ranking jumped from No. 19 to No. 11 with his effort in Melbourne; if he can get into the top 10 by the time the Olympic deadline rolls around, he could conceivably still make the Summer Games, possibly with Adil Shamasdin as a partner. Nestor was left out when top Canadian Milos Raonic asked Pospisil to team up with him in Rio. Meanwhile, Stepanek jumped from No. 82 to No. 36, so their issues in terms of gaining entry into the top events are resolved.

Adil Shamasdin's quest for a third career title in Sofia ended in disappointment on Sunday; he'll face the same Dutch team in Memphis in the first round this week, with a different partner. (From TennisTV.com)
Adil Shamasdin's quest for a third career title in Sofia ended in disappointment on Sunday; he'll face the same Dutch team in Memphis in the first round this week, with a different partner. (From TennisTV.com)

Shamasdin, from Pickering, Ont., missed a great chance to pull off his third career ATP Tour title as he and partner Philipp Oswald of Austria dropped a 5-7, 7-6 (9), 10-6 decision to a Dutch pair in the final of a tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria on Sunday. They were up a set and 4-1 (one break of serve) in that one before Wesley Koolhof and Matwe Middelkoop mounted a comeback.

The 33-year-old had to make the 18-hour trip to Memphis, Tennessee Monday for his next tournament, where he will team up with Tomasz Bednarek of Poland. As it happens, their first-round opponents will be  ... Koolhof and Middlekoop.

Meanwhile, the vagabond known as Frank Dancevic, who lost in the first round of qualifying in Australia then stayed in Melbourne for most of the rest of the tournament to practice (he had a date in New Zealand for his sister's wedding), begins his season in earnest in Switzerland over the next two weeks.

Dancevic is the No. 1 seed at a Futures event in Oberentfelden this week; it's the lowest level of pro events, but both tournaments saw their prize money bumped to a total of $25,000 each this season. Dancevic will endeavour to get his ranking back up; the 31-year-old currently sits at No. 240.

Frank Dancevic's Melbourne experience was short-lived, but he did get some good practice in. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)
Frank Dancevic's Melbourne experience was short-lived, but he did get some good practice in. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)

He was already through to the second round with a victory Monday.

A large group of juniors (which doesn't include Canada's top-ranked kids, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Charlotte Robillard-Millette and Bianca Andreescu, among others) will be at an ITF Grade 2 tournament on red clay in La Paz, Bolivia this week.

(Bookmark this link to keep track of the updated Canadian results all week long).