A week after the ITF season kicked off in Canada, both the men’s and women’s tours arrive in Montreal for an event at IGA Stadium.
On the men’s side, it is a return to Quebec’s largest city as the tour skipped Montreal in 2024. The hosts will be hoping for a similar result to the 2023 edition when local favourite Gabriel Diallo took home the title. For the women, youth is in the spotlight with all of the Canadian women in the singles draw under the age of 25.
These two events will be the last ones on the Road to the NBO until the summer.
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At least eight Canadian women will be in the main draw of the women’s event this week, led by Ariana Arseneault. The 2024 National Bank Open doubles quarter-finalist is the only Canadian seeded in the singles draw at No. 4. She opens against fellow Canadian Isabella Marton, a wildcard.
There are two all-Canadian matchups in the first round. As well as Arseneault vs Marton, Ana Grubor will take on another wildcard Annabelle Xu, who is currently the highest-ranked Canadian singles player in the NCAA system.
Brit Emily Appleton, who won the title last week in Trois-Rivieres, is the top seed. She could face Canadian wildcard Clemence Mercier, who was the last Canadian standing in Trois-Rivieres, in the second round. Both women open against qualifiers.
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Nadia Lagaev is also in that top quarter and plays No. 6 seed Michaela Laki of Greece in the first round. Another Canadian wildcard, Anna Tabunshchyk is in the third quarter of the draw, while Raphaelle Lacasse rounds out the Canadian contingent in the bottom quarter.
Three Canadian women, Thea Donarski, Lea Cousineau, and Brooke Feth, are in the final round of qualifying on Tuesday and could join the other eight Canadians in the main draw.
Nine Canadians are competing in doubles including four all-Canadian teams. Three of those pairs are clustered in the same section of the draw. Feth and Tabunshchyk play Lagaev and Mercier in the first round, with the winner potentially meeting Maria Komar and Marton in the second round if Komar and Marton upset the second seeds Sara Daavettila and Sabastiani Leon.
Lola Emilia Bean and Laurence Demers are facing off with the third seeds Dasha Ivanova and Amy Zhu and also could play a Canadian in round two, Lacasse and her American partner Christina McHale.
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Half of the Canadian men competing in singles in Montreal are clustered together in the bottom quarter of the draw, including a brotherly battle in round one. Twins Mikael and Nicholas Arseneault, Ariana’s little brothers, drew each other in the first round. The winner could face No. 7 seed Dan Martin, who won the doubles title last week in Sherbrooke.
Nicaise Muamba, who had the best singles performance by a Canadian in Sherbrooke, will open against a qualifier and could face second seed Alex Rybakov in the second round. Muamba could face Martin or one of the Arseneaults in the quarter-finals.
The rest of the Canadians were spread out with one per quarter. Adam Farag-Cao got some bad luck, drawing top seed Alfredo Perez in the first round. Joshua Lapadat does not have it much better as he will face third seed Strong Kirchheimer. Benjamin Thomas George avoided a first-round meeting with a seed, although he could play No. 4 Noah Schachter in round two.
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Only two Canadian men are still alive in qualifying, Andrei Caragea and Antoine Clavel.
In doubles, the all-Canadian teams were well spread out. There are a couple of matchups that feature three Canadians, including the Arseneault twins against George and his American partner Oren Vasser, the third seeds, and Caragea and Caden Colburne against the fourth-seeded team of Lapadat and Jesse Flores of Costa Rice.
Martin is going for back-to-back titles in Quebec with American Matt Kuhar and have a rematch of the Sherbrooke final in round one against Andrew Fenty and Daniel Milavsky.
Muamba and his American partner Jake Van Emburgh face the second seeds Brian Bozemoj and Daniel de Jonge of the Netherlands in the first round. The all-Canadian pair of Clavel and Antoine Genereux are in the top section and could face the first seeded pair of Keshav Chopra and Phillip Jordan in round two.
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