Defending champions Pegula and Sinner face tricky draws at National Bank Open

Sinner returns to the site of his maiden Masters 1000 triumph in Canada, while Pegula aims to defend her title from last summer

Jannik Sinner, Toronto, 2023 © Zuma / Panoramic

Jamie Malachy

August 4, 2024

Away from the feverish cauldron of emotion that is the Parisian Games, the regular tour marches stoically on over in North America.

As the tennis events in this summer’s Games come to a conclusion, focus moves rapidly – albeit somewhat distractedly – over to one of the biggest events of the hard-court late-summer swing.

The National Bank Open is just a day away from commencing, with the joint WTA and ATP 1000-level tournaments taking place in Toronto and Montreal respectively.

Defending champions Jessica Pegula and Jannik Sinner have both been handed potentially difficult paths to reclaiming their crowns from 12 months ago, as the draw revealed yesterday.

The current WTA world No 6, off the back of an early departure from the Paris Games, will play either Nadia Podoroska of Argentina or Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in her opening-round match, having received a bye into the last 32.

2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez lurks as a potential last-16 opponent, should she come through the first two rounds.

An all-American clash between top-seeded Coco Gauff and 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin is another possible second-round encounter to bookmark, with the latter having knocked Gauff out of Wimbledon in the opening round last summer.

Main draw at at Toronto (WTA 1000), where Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula and Jelena Ostapenko are the top seeds.

1R draw: Ons Jabeur vs. Naomi Osaka. pic.twitter.com/QL0D1t9Pzv
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) August 3, 2024

Perhaps the most eye-catching of the Toronto match-ups, however, is a first-round meeting between Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka.

The Japanese player is still in the process of re-finding her best form having only returned from giving birth to her daughter at the turn of the new season in January. Jabeur, too, is struggling for consistency, having fallen in the third round at Wimbledon last month following back-to-back final appearances.

A little over 500 miles away, in Montreal, the ATP line-up looks equally intriguing.

Reigning Wimbledon and Roland-Garros champion, Carlos Alcaraz, has already pulled out of the Canadian Masters event after his exertions at the Olympic Games in Paris.

But the world No 1 and defending champion, Jannik Sinner, will play Spaniard Pedro Martinez or a qualifier in the first round.

Surging Chilean Alejandro Tabilo looms large in the third round, potentially. After an excellent clay-court season and looking impressive on the grass, the left-hander will be hoping to translate that good form onto hard courts.

Also in the Italian’s quarter is fifth seed Andrey Rublev, while former US Open champion Daniil Medvedev lies in his half of the draw – a player whose seismic rise was first signalled across the North American hard-court swing five years ago.

“I’m very happy to come back here,” Sinner said ahead of his title defence in Montreal.

“It started off from last year in the semis of Wimbledon and then I came here for the first Masters event I won. I’ve been very consistent throughout one year and that’s at least what we will try to do in the next months also.”

While all attention is still on the final stages of the Olympics events today, the regular tour will pick up in earnest in Canada over the following week as the players reconvene for the build-up to New York, with the final Grand Slam of the year getting under way at the end of the month.