TORONTO \u2014 The National Bank Open took some body blows before the event due to some high-profile withdrawals.<\/p>\n
The hits have kept coming since the seeded players took the court.<\/p>\n
The two highest-seeded Canadians – No. 21 Felix Auger-Aliassime of Montreal and No. 22 Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., – are both out after losing their opening matches at the Masters 1000 men’s tournament.<\/p>\n
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Auger-Aliassime dropped a 6-4, 6-4 decision to Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan on Wednesday night, a day after Shapovalov lost his second-round match to American Learner Tien.<\/p>\n
“I was trying my best on every point and it’s not enough,” Auger-Aliassime said. “So obviously on one hand, I have to give credit to my opponent.<\/p>\n
“On the other hand, I have to dig a little bit deeper to see where I can find solutions within myself.”<\/p>\n
Montreal’s Gabriel Diallo, the No. 27 seed, is the lone Canadian left in the 96-man singles draw with a full week of competition left to play.<\/p>\n
Diallo earned a 6-3, 7-6 (5) rain-interrupted victory over Italy’s Matteo Gigante in the afternoon. Wild-card entry Alexis Galarneau of Laval, Ont., dropped a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 decision to 13th-seeded Flavio Cobolli of Italy.<\/p>\n
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Top-ranked Jannik Sinner of Italy, No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, No. 5 Jack Draper of Britain and No. 6 Novak Djokovic of Serbia are all skipping the US$9.19-million hardcourt event.<\/p>\n
Germany’s Alexander Zverev tops a seeding list that includes American Taylor Fritz, Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, American Ben Shelton and Denmark’s Holger Rune in the top five.<\/p>\n
Marozsan broke Auger-Aliassime’s serve at 4-4 in the first set when the Canadian double-faulted. Auger-Aliassime had a triple-break opportunity early in the second set but Maroszan fought back to hold.<\/p>\n
The Hungarian had a break point at 3-3 and delivered a brilliant lob that Auger-Aliassime couldn’t chase down from the net. He closed out the match in one hour 41 minutes.<\/p>\n
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Earlier in the day, Diallo saved two set points at 2-5 before breaking back and eventually forcing a tiebreaker. Gigante took a 5-3 lead but dropped the last four points, including a double-fault on match ball.<\/p>\n
“Tennis is sometimes pretty crazy with the momentum switches that you see throughout a match,” Diallo said.<\/p>\n
Diallo won his first ATP Tour title last month at a 250-level stop in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
He followed that up with a strong appearance at Wimbledon, pushing Fritz to a fifth set in a second-round loss.<\/p>\n
Fritz could be his next opponent here if the American can get by Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena in the late match Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
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Earlier in the week, Galarneau earned his first main draw victory on the top-flight tour with a 7-6 (2), 6-3 first-round win over Arthur Rinderknech of France.<\/p>\n
“I’m really proud (of) that,” said Galarneau, who’s ranked 193rd in the world. “Also proud of the fight that I put up today. I thought I played pretty well, and a lot of positives that I can take away from this week.”<\/p>\n
The afternoon session was delayed for about half an hour due to showers in the northwest Toronto area.<\/p>\n
In other second-round matches, Shelton beat French qualifier Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-3 and sixth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev defeated Hugo Gaston of France 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n
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Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego, the No. 28 seed, topped China’s Yunchaokete Bu 6-1, 6-4 and Australia’s Aleksandar Vukic upset 31st-seeded Cameron Norrie of Britain 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-3.<\/p>\n
Australian Christopher O’Connell posted a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win over 23rd-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece and American Frances Tiafoe, the seventh seed, outlasted Japanese qualifier Yosuke Watanuki 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5).<\/p>\n
Czechia’s Jakub Mensik, the No. 12 seed, beat American qualifier Tristan Boyer 6-4, 6-4 and 19th-seeded Czech Jiri Lehecka defeated American Mackenzie McDonald 7-6 (2), 6-4.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the No. 20 seed, topped Corentin Moutet of France 6-4, 6-3 and 25th-seeded Brandon Nakashima got by fellow American Ethan Quinn 7-6 (6), 6-4.<\/p>\n
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Shapovalov withdrew from doubles competition Wednesday due to a left knee injury. He was scheduled to team with Auger-Aliassime against the American duo of Robert Galloway and Nakashima.<\/p>\n
A replacement pairing will be named a few hours before Thursday’s match, organizers said.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2025.<\/p>\n
Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 The National Bank Open took some body blows before the event due to some high-profile withdrawals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6774,24931,14693,19369,49,48,619,602,26833,14695,26835,24937,4996,26465,44,2083,26834,15226],"class_list":{"0":"post-36085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alexander-zverev","9":"tag-alexis-galarneau","10":"tag-auger-aliassime","11":"tag-ben-shelton","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","15":"tag-denis-shapovalov","16":"tag-fabian-marozsan","17":"tag-felix-auger-aliassime","18":"tag-flavio-cobolli","19":"tag-gabriel-diallo","20":"tag-italy","21":"tag-lorenzo-musetti","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-novak-djokovic","24":"tag-seeded-players","25":"tag-taylor-fritz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}