{"id":36182,"date":"2025-07-31T05:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36182\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T05:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:45:08","slug":"diallos-resilient-win-gives-canadian-fans-something-to-cheer-about-at-nbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36182\/","title":{"rendered":"Diallo\u2019s resilient win gives Canadian fans something to cheer about at NBO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Gabriel Diallo returns a shot to Matteo Gigante during the National Bank Open at Sobeys Stadium on Wednesday in Toronto.Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

During the last two summers, Gabriel Diallo needed a wild card to get into the National Bank Open. This year, the 23-year-old not only got in with his own ranking, but he\u2019s seeded, and arguably Canada\u2019s most fascinating player at Toronto\u2019s ATP Masters 1000 tournament. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the 6-foot-8 hard-serving Montrealer advanced to the third round of the tournament by beating Italian wild card Matteo Gigante, 6-3, 7-6 (4) in a match that showed his ability to bounce back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest in an impressive season for 23-year-old Diallo. He has climbed some 50 spots in the ATP rankings and collected his first title<\/a>, the grass-court ATP 250 Libema Open in the Netherlands. Diallo is now a career-best World No. 36 and seeded No. 27 at the NB Open. <\/p>\n

He earns a third-round matchup with the winner of Wednesday\u2019s late match between Spain\u2019s Roberto Carballes Baena and U.S. World No. 4 Taylor Fritz \u2013 the tournament\u2019s No. 2 seed. Fritz and Diallo recently met at Wimbledon<\/a>, with the American winning<\/a> their thrilling five-setter. It showed he belongs on big stages.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, if you would have told me that I\u2019ve come back [in Toronto] as a seeded player, I probably wouldn\u2019t have believed you,\u201d said Diallo. \u201cVery happy with the way I competed today. It felt a little bit different than two years ago, like you have a little bit more to lose. But I got great support from the crowd and happy that I got it done in two sets.\u201d <\/p>\n

Denis Shapovalov comes up short on home court at NBO<\/a><\/p>\n

Diallo grew up the only child of two newcomers to Canada. His mother Iryna is Ukrainian and was a national team handball player. She met his Guineau-born father Moubassirou when he was on an educational exchange in the former Soviet Union. They both studied engineering. The couple came to Canada in the early 90s, and their son was born in Montreal in 2001.<\/p>\n

He speaks English, French and Russian and is also learning Spanish. His girlfriend is from Spain \u2013 Fiona Arrese, a fellow player he met on the tennis team while playing at The University of Kentucky. She helped him with that bold hairstyle he\u2019s sporting. They dyed his dark hair platinum just before he won his first ATP title. It\u2019s been a lucky look, he figures.<\/p>\n

His recent roll actually got going in 2024, including a run to the third round<\/a> at the U.S. Open after coming through qualifying, making the finals of the ATP 250 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and breaking into the top 100.<\/p>\n

There were earlier signs though. Like at the 2023 NB Open in Toronto, when Diallo was ranked No. 141 and playing on grandstand court, notching his first ATP win over then World No. 21 Daniel Evans.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Diallo ran into trouble against Gigante in the second set of their match on Wednesday, but the Montrealer fought his way back into it to close him out in straight sets, punching his ticket to the third round of play.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

He\u2019s in a very different spot this week in Toronto. He broke Gigante, the World No. 125, at the first opportunity, on the fast, lively court in hot sun. He swiftly won the first set 6-3, even after rain clouds passed over Sobey\u2019s stadium and briefly suspended the match. <\/p>\n

The second set was different. Gigante broke Diallo first and took a 5-2 lead in the set. The Montrealer clawed his way back, breaking the Italian and then leaning into his big serve to pull even. It went to a tiebreak, and Gigante jumped out to a 4-2 lead, before Diallo rallied back again, stealing the set and the match. <\/p>\n

He relishes another chance to play before a big crowd in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a Canadian\u2019s perspective, we don\u2019t have a lot of opportunities to play at home,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you kind of want to use that opportunity as much as you can and perform, but you have to make sure also you don\u2019t step into the other extreme, which is putting too much pressure and expectation on yourself. So it\u2019s about this fine balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two other Canadian men bowed out in singles action on Wednesday. Felix Auger-Aliassime lost 6-4, 6-4 to F\u00e1bi\u00e1n Marozs\u00e1n of Hungary, while Alexis Galarneau fell to Italy\u2019s Flavio Cobolli, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Gabriel Diallo returns a shot to Matteo Gigante during the National Bank Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,8023],"class_list":{"0":"post-36182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-topstory"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36182","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=36182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}