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Gaby Dabrowski comes into her home WTA event after winning Canada’s second-ever Olympic medal in tennis, while American Coco Gauff is the No. 1 seed in the singles draw as the tour shifts to Toronto.
The National Bank Open begins this week at Sobeys Stadium, and with a handful of players who were in action at the Olympics just days ago — though among the recent withdrawals from the field are the Olympic gold, silver and bronze medallists in women’s singles, which includes the world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.
The Canadian contingent in the NBO singles draw is headlined by Leylah Fernandez, the country’s top-ranked woman at No. 25, and Bianca Andreescu, who became the first Canadian in 50 years to win this tournament, back in 2019.
Here are some players to keep an eye on as the NBO gets underway, starting with first-round play on Tuesday, with the finals set for Aug. 12.
Dabrowski riding a high
Less than a week ago, Ottawa’s Dabrowski won Olympic bronze with Felix Auger-Aliassime in mixed doubles, joining Daniel Nestor and Sebastien Lareau as the only Canadians to win an Olympic medal in tennis.
Dabrowski and Auger-Aliassime did so in dramatic fashion, winning in a second set tiebreaker against Dutch duo Wesley Koolhof and Demi Schuurs.
Dabrowski, 32, adds the Olympic hardware to her already impressive collection that includes a 2023 US Open championship in women’s doubles, and mixed doubles titles at the 2018 Australian Open and 2017 French Open.
She won the 2021 NBO with Brazil’s Luisa Stefani. Dabrowski is now teamed up with Erin Routliffe of New Zealand, who she won the US Open with last year.
Ranked a career-high No. 3 in the world in doubles, Dabrowski is looking for her 17th career women’s doubles titles in Toronto. She and Routliffe won earlier this season in Nottingham.
Coco’s No. 1
After Swiatek’s withdrawal, reigning US Open champion Gauff is the top player in the singles draw.
Just a couple weeks ago, the 20-year-old became the youngest-ever American and first-ever tennis player to carry the American flag into an Olympic opening ceremony, alongside LeBron James.
But while Gauff’s Olympics began with her making history, the rest of the Games didn’t go as planned for the world No. 2. She was upset in the third round of singles play by eventual silver medallist Donna Vekic of Croatia, and it wasn’t without controversy.
Vekic won the first set in a tiebreaker, and then in the second set, a ball Vekic hit was called out by a line judge before Gauff hit it back into the net. But the chair umpire determined Vekic’s shot was actually in, and awarded the Croatian the point.
“This isn’t fair, he called it out before I hit the ball,” Gauff said to chair umpire, Jaume Campistol. “If he called it out before I hit it, it affects the swing.”
Gauff went on to say she’d had four or five similar calls this season, and she was in tears on the court during her exchange with the umpire.
“I feel like I’m getting cheated on constantly in this game,” she told Campistol. “And then you guys apologize afterwards, you guys say, ‘I’m sorry,’ but what does that do for me in the match? OK, it’s not intentional but it happens to me, it happened to Serena [Williams]. You guys are not fair to me and I hope one day the game becomes fair, but it’s not.”
Vekic went on to win that game and take a 4-2 lead in the second set, which she eventually won 6-2.
Gauff comes into Toronto fresh off that early exit in Paris, and she’s no doubt looking to get herself back in the win column. She won her seventh WTA title earlier this year in Auckland, and made the semi-final of both the Australian Open and the French Open.
Leylah Fernandez kicks things off
The 21-year-old Fernandez opens her singles play on Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET against Zhang Shuai of China.
Fernandez, who’s from Montreal, made a WTA final earlier this summer, in June, at the Eastbourne International. She won her last singles title in 2023 in Hong Kong, the third of her career, the same year she went undefeated in five matches to help Canada win its first-ever Billie Jean King Cup final.
Fernandez last played at the Olympics, where she lost in the third round to Germany’s Angelique Kerber. She also teamed up with Dabrowski in doubles in Paris, and they lost in the second round.
The 2021 US Open finalist, Fernandez lost in the third round of the NBO last year in Montreal, to American Danielle Collins.
Her side of the draw this year includes seventh-seeded Madison Keys, Sloane Stephens and 12th seed Vika Azarenka. Look for the lefty to get fans going in Toronto as she attempts to go on a run.
Return of the defending champion
American Jessica Pegula won the NBO a year ago in Montreal, and the 30-year-old from Buffalo will be trying to do what no player has done in this tournament in more than two decades: Defend her title.
The last player to win the WTA’s Canadian stop back-to-back was Martina Hingis, in 1999 and 2000. And the four years before Hingis won it back-to-back, it was won in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998 by the legendary Monica Seles.
Pegula, who is seeded third here, has work to do to catch Hingis and Seles. Pegula won her fifth career title earlier this year in Berlin.
Post-Olympic withdrawals
A number of top-ranked players withdrew from the NBO after their Olympic participation.
Zheng Qinwen won’t be competing after making history as China’s first-ever tennis singles Olympic champion. The final match in Paris was played just days ago, on Saturday, and Vekic, whom she beat in the final, also withdrew, as did Swiatek, the bronze medallist.
Swiatek was set to be the top seed at the NBO for the third straight year. The 23-year-old cited fatigue as the reason she won’t be playing in Toronto. In Paris, the five-time Grand Slam champion won a first-ever Olympic medal for Poland in tennis, and Swiatek told reporters she cried for hours after losing the semifinal to Zheng, crushing her hopes for a gold medal.
Also missing in action at the NBO is Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, the world No. 10 who’s out with a thigh injury. World No. 4 Elena Rybakina withdrew due to bronchitis. World No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, No. 8 Danielle Collins and No. 9 Maria Sakkari also aren’t in the field.
Wild cards include Andreescu
Former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu of Mississauga, Ont., is a wild-card entry in the NBO, the tournament she won in 2019 during a historic season that saw her become the first-ever Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title.
Andreescu, 24, made one final earlier this year, and she comes into the NBO with an 8-4 singles record this season. She made her Olympic debut in Paris and lost in the second round to Croatia’s Vekic, the eventual silver medallist.
She’ll play Lesia Tsurenko in the opening round in the night session on Tuesday. They’ve played twice before and Andreescu has never beaten Tsurenko, though she was forced to retire with an injury in one of their meetings.
Andreescu is a main draw wild-card entry along with fellow Canadians Rebecca Marino and Marina Stakusic, who were both part of Canada’s 2023 Billie Jean King Cup championship team. The 19-year-old Stakusic earlier this year qualified for her first Grand Slam main draw at Wimbledon.
Osaka is back for a can’t-miss first-round match
Also on the wild-card entry list for the tournament is four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka, who returned to tennis in January after giving birth to her daughter last summer.
Osaka won a Grand Slam every year between 2018 and 2021, with two Australian Open and two US Open titles. She competed at the NBO for the last time in 2022.
The 26-year-old is 16-13 in singles play this season, and has cracked a couple of quarterfinals.
Her first-round match will be against ninth seed Ons Jabeur. The two have gone head-to-head just once before, when Osaka beat Jabeur in straight sets en route to her 2021 Australian Open title. They’re set to play in a star-studded opening round matchup during the day session on Wednesday.
