The expanded format for the National Bank Open presented by Rogers returns for a second year in a row with the start of main-draw play on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The 96-player tournaments, up from 56, now run over 12 days instead of seven. This year, the men are in Montreal while the women play in Toronto.<\/p>\n
The 32 seeded players in each event get first-round byes, meaning they don’t hit the court until Tuesday or Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Still, plenty of familiar names are in action over the first two days, including a big Canadian contingent trying to take advantage of an annual opportunity to play in top-level events on home courts.<\/p>\n
Here’s a look at what’s in store on opening day:<\/p>\n
Venus opens play on Centre Court<\/p>\n
While Serena Williams won’t include Toronto as part of her comeback, her sister Venus is in the city.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old plays the opening match on Centre Court against Kamilla Rakhimova of Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
Williams has played a limited schedule this season, going 2-6. <\/p>\n
The seven-time Grand Slam champion had her best finish in Canada in 2014 when she was runner-up to Agnieszka Radwa\u0144ska in Montreal.<\/p>\n
“I remember playing here the first time when I was like 15 or 16,” Williams told reporters in Toronto on Saturday. “I was such a young person. I played the night match and I didn’t know what was going on (laughing).\u00a0 But I learned a lot since that time. Folks in Canada are so nice.”<\/p>\n
Bianca Andreescu produced a dramatic win with a terrible ending at last year’s NBO in Montreal. Andreescu badly injured her ankle in the final game of her first-round win over Barbora Krejcikova and then had to pull out of her next match. <\/p>\n
Andreescu is now ranked 174th in the world after reaching No. 4 in her breakthrough 2019 campaign, which included tournament titles in Toronto and at the US Open. The native of Mississauga, Ont. has been hit hard by injuries in recent years.<\/p>\n
Andreescu has a tough draw to open the NBO. facing world No. 41 Nikola Bartunkova of Czechia in the featured evening match. The 20-year-old, who was ranked outside the top 500 last June, has wins over Belinda Bencic and Madison Keys this year.<\/p>\n
Diallo looks to reverse fortunes<\/p>\n
It has been a miserable year for Gabriel Diallo, who is 9-17 in 2026. The Montrealer has dropped to No. 99 in the rankings, and needed a wild card to get into his home event.<\/p>\n
Diallo is a long way down from his career-high No. 33 ranking, achieved last August. Diallo won his first career ATP Tour-level match at the 2023 NBO in Toronto. He hopes he can get a boost from playing at home as he opens in the featured night match against French qualifier Kyrian Jacquet on Sunday.<\/p>\n
It’s a very winnable match for Diallo with Jacquet ranked 120th.<\/p>\n
BROADCAST SCHEDULE (all times ET)<\/p>\n
Women’s: 12:30 p.m. (Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet+); 7 p.m. (Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+)
Men’s: 11 a.m. (Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+); 7 p.m. (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+)<\/p>\n
MATCH SCHEDULE (all times ET)<\/p>\n
Centre Court (starts at 12:30 p.m.)
Kamilla Rakhimova (UZB) vs [WC] Venus Williams (USA)\u00a0
[Q] Aoi Ito (JPN) vs [WC] Katherine Sebov (CAN)\u00a0
Not before 7 p.m.: Nikola Bartunkova (CZE) vs [WC] Bianca Andreescu (CAN)\u00a0
Yulia Putintseva (KAZ) vs Shuai Zhang (CHN)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grandstand (starts at 11 a.m.)
Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (ESP) vs [WC] Ariana Arseneault (CAN)\u00a0
[Q] Moyuka Uchijima (JPN) vs Cristina Bucsa (ESP)\u00a0
Magdalena Frech (POL) vs [Q] Leolia Jeanjean (FRA)\u00a0
Not before 5 p.m.: McCartney Kessler (USA) vs [WC] Cadence Brace (CAN)\u00a0
Elena-Gabriela Ruse (ROU) vs Peyton Stearns (USA)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court 1 (starts at 12:30 p.m.)
Kimberly Birrell (AUS) vs Viktorija Golubic (SUI)\u00a0
[Q] Lucrezia Stefanini (ITA) vs Camila Osorio (COL)\u00a0
Not before 4 p.m.:\u00a0[Q] Emerson Jones (AUS) vs [Q] Lanlana Tararudee (THA)\u00a0
Talia Gibson (AUS) vs Elisabetta Cocciaretto (ITA)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Court 4 (starts at 12:30 p.m.)
Xiyu Wang (CHN) vs Sara Bejlek (CZE)\u00a0
[Q] Lois Boisson (FRA) vs Antonia Ruzic (CRO)\u00a0
[Q] Rebecca Sramkova (SVK) vs [Q] Anna Blinkova (RUS)\u00a0<\/p>\n
Centre Court (starts at 11 a.m.)
Aleksandar Kovacevic (USA) vs Nuno Borges (POR)
Matteo Berrettini (ITA) vs Mariano Navone (ARG)
Marton Fucsovics (HUN) vs Corentin Moutet (FRA)
Not before 7 p.m.: [WC] Gabriel Diallo (CAN) vs [Q] Kyrian Jacquet (FRA)
[WC] Alexis Galarneau (CAN) vs Vit Kopriva (CZE)<\/p>\n
Rogers Court (starts at 11 a.m.)
Jaume Munar (ESP) vs Rinky Hijikata (AUS)
[Q] Nicolas Mejia (COL) vs Martin Landaluce (ESP)
Luca Van Assche (FRA) vs [Q] Titouan Droguet (FRA)
Not before 6 p.m.: [Q] Sho Shimabukuro (JPN) vs Marin Cilic (CRO)
[Q] Benjamin Bonzi (FRA) vs Yannick Hanfmann (GER)<\/p>\n
Court 5 (starts at 11 a.m.)
[Q] Michael Zheng (USA) vs Miomir Kecmanovic (SRB)
[Q] Aleksandar Vukic (AUS) vs Daniel Altmaier (GER)<\/p>\n
Court 9 (starts at 11 a.m.)
Adolfo Daniel Vallejo (PAR) vs Juncheng Shang (CHN)
James Duckworth (AUS) vs [Q] Christopher O’Connell (AUS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The expanded format for the National Bank Open presented by Rogers returns for a second year in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-842513","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\/842513","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=842513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}