Organizers of the National Bank Championships in Granby on Friday granted main draw passes to several Canadian players, including Quebec’s Rebecca Marino and Gabriel Diallo.
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Tennis Saint-Luc welcomes athletes to a WTA 250 category event and a stage of the ATP Challenger Circuit from August 20th to 28th.
Vancouver’s Marino will lead Canada in the women’s portion of the tournament and is ranked 113th in the world. She meets 15-year-old compatriot Victoria Mboko in the first round, who has been causing quite a stir on the ITF circuit lately.
The other Canadian in the running, Katherine Sebov, meets China’s Xinyu Wang at the start of her tournament.
We also expect the presence of the 10th racquet in the world in Granby, Russian Daria Kasatkina, who will cross swords with Belgian Greet Minnen. Alison Van Uytvanck (42nd), second seeded, meets Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova at the bottom of the table.
In total, more than twenty players from the top 100 have confirmed that they will be in Estrie.
In the men’s game, Diallo meets a player from qualifying. Juan Carlos Aguilar meets 8th seed Nick Hardt while Marko Stakusic will play his first round match against 6th seed Juncheng Shang.
Finally, young Ontario Liam Draxl will have a challenge against third seed Australian Jordan Thompson.
Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech, 64th racquet in the world, is the top ranked player participating in the tournament. The Czech Jiri Vesely (67th) is second.
The competition starts on Sunday. Fans can use the open house on Saturday to attend the qualifiers for free.
“It’s for fans who don’t always have the opportunity to watch games in Montreal or Toronto and find themselves at level 300 in the stadium. There they will see that it is a completely different experience than going to Granby in a small 1,000 seat stadium. We’re attached to the game, to the athletes, we meet them all over the field. It’s very friendly,” said Tennis Canada senior vice president Eugène Lapierre in an interview with TVA Nouvelles.
– With information from Anick Berger, TVA Nouvelles