{"id":839474,"date":"2026-08-01T02:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/839474\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T02:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T02:37:08","slug":"former-grand-slam-champs-to-compete-in-qualifying-for-national-bank-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/839474\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Grand Slam champs to compete in qualifying for National Bank Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several familiar faces will be attempting to earn main-draw spots in the National Bank Open presented by Rogers on Saturday in Toronto and Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin and 2017 US Open winner Sloane Stephens, both of the U.S., are two of the marquee names in the qualifying draw at the women&#8217;s event in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>Stephens faces fellow American Katie Volynets, while Kenin meets Lucrezia Stefanini of Italy.<\/p>\n<p>2024 Australian Open runner-up Zheng Qinwen of China and 2025 French Open semifinalist Lois Boisson also are in the qualifying field, along with Canadians Ana Grubor, Isabella Marton and Avery Alexander.<\/p>\n<p>On the men&#8217;s side, 2023 Australian Open finalist and 2021 French Open runner-up Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece is the top seed in qualifying in Montreal. He&#8217;ll play an opponent to be announced.<\/p>\n<p>2024 National Bank Open champ Alexei Popyrin of Australia faces fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis, while 2014 US Open runner-up Kei Nishikori of Japan faces two-time NCAA champion Michael Zheng of the U.S., who reached the third round at Wimbledon this year.<\/p>\n<p>Duncan Chan and Justin Boulais are the Canadians in qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>The winners of each of the 16 qualifying matches in Toronto and Montreal earn spots in the main draw, which begins Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several familiar faces will be attempting to earn main-draw spots in the National Bank Open presented by Rogers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-839474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839474","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=839474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}