FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
23 players in the Hologic WTA Tour Top 100 in attendance
Granby, Tuesday, August 2, 2022 — Today, the inaugural edition of the Granby National Bank Championships—a combined event featuring a Hologic WTA Tour 250 tournament and an ATP Challenger—announced the names of the players who will be competing at Tennis Saint-Luc from August 20 to 28.
At present, 23 women in the WTA Top 100 have confirmed their participation. The 32-player main draw will also include four qualifiers, four wild cards and one special exempt competitor.
Among the headliners are No.25 Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil. The 26-year-old left-hander is having the best season of her career and recently won her first two WTA singles titles in Nottingham and Birmingham. An equally talented doubles player (winner in Sydney and Nottingham in 2022), she promises to be a formidable opponent in Granby. In recent months, she has overpowered eight Top 50 players, including No.3 Maria Sakkari and former National Bank Open champions Simona Halep (No.16), Petra Kvitova (No.24) and Camila Giorgi (No.29).
Another player to watch is No.43 Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium, who happens to be a Canadian WTA 250 titleholder. In 2017, when the Championships were National Bank Cup in Québec, she defeated Timea Babos of Hungary in the final to raise the winner’s trophy. In Granby, Van Uytvanck will be out to rekindle the tennis magic and end the drought that started in 2019.
Quite a few competitors have the potential to break through at the Granby National Bank Championships, including No.55 Anna Bondar of Hungary, No.56 Jasmine Paolini of Italy, No.59 Nuria Parrizas Diaz of Spain, No.73 Tereza Martincova of Czechia, No.74 Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine and No.83 Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia. Despite tumbling in the rankings, they all competed in the Top 50 this season. In February, Zidansek rose as high as No.22 after an excellent 2021 season during which she won her first Hologic WTA Tour singles crown in Lausanne and got to the final in Bogota and the semifinals at Roland-Garros.
Click here for the full list of competitors in the women’s event of the Granby National Bank Championships.
“We’re very pleased that Granby will be presenting a Hologic WTA Tour event and that Canada will be hosting several of the world’s best women’s tennis players for the second time this year,” said Eugène Lapierre, senior vice president of professional tennis in Québec. “While they may not be in the draw yet, we can confirm that a number of Canadian players will also enter the competition. They’ll have the chance to gain valuable ranking points at home, and the younger ones will get the fantastic opportunity to experience a high-caliber tournament. Their names will be announced in the coming weeks.”
On the men’s side, one Canadian has already confirmed his participation in the Challenger: Alexis Galarneau (Laval, QC), who is currently ranked No.238 after starting the season out at No.378. The Quebecer has been on the rise thanks to his great results, including an appearance in the final at the Winnipeg National Bank Challenger. Building on his success, Galarneau should be feeling confident as he makes his way to Granby, especially since it will be one of his first tournaments in his home province since he turned pro.
The ATP rankings dictate that top two seeds will be No.66 Jiri Vesely of Czechia and No.69 Arthur Rinderknech of France.
Vesely, who ranked as high as No.35 in 2015, has orchestrated his fair share of upsets this season. In the second round of Wimbledon this past June, he eliminated No.35 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain in five sets (6-3, 5-7, 6-7(2), 6-3, 7-6(7)) and fought his way into the final in Dubai, ousting No.16 Marin Cilic, No.18 Roberto Bautista Augut, No.6 Novak Djokovic and No.22 Denis Shapovalov along the way.
As for Rinderknech, he has also outmaneuvered some big names in 2022, including Shapovalov, No.24 Karen Kachanov and No.42 Alexander Bublik, and took the title at the Poznan Open Challenger in Poland in June. Ranked as high as No.48 at the start of the season, the Frenchman will be focused on making Granby a success and collecting key points before heading into the US Open the following week.
“In 2022, Granby will showcase some high-quality tennis, as it gives fans the opportunity to see WTA stars and emerging ATP aces in action,” added Richard Quirion, tournament director of the Granby National Bank Championships. “In Canada, the caliber of the tournament in Granby is second only to that of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers, and I’m convinced local enthusiasts will be dazzled by the sensational matches that are in store from August 20 to 28!”
Click here for the full list of competitors in the men’s event of the Granby National Bank Championships.
In 2022, TVA Sports is the official French-language broadcaster of the National Bank Championships. Fans can follow the action on Tennis Canada’s official accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as the website https://nationalbankchampionships.com.
About the Granby National Bank Championships
Presented from August 20 to 28, 2022, the Granby National Bank Championships join a select group of some thirty WTA 250 tournaments around the world, in cities such as Sydney, Lyon, Istanbul, Prague and Seoul. In addition to giving Canadian players a golden opportunity to compete on home soil and earn valuable ranking points, the tournament provides fans in and around Granby with the chance to see elite competitors in action.
Formerly known as National Bank Cup and presented for over 26 years in Québec before moving to the United States, the WTA 250 competition returns to Canada ahead of the US Open.
About Tennis Canada
Founded in 1890, Tennis Canada is a non-profit, national sport association with a mission to lead the growth of tennis in Canada and a vision to become a world-leading tennis nation. We value teamwork, passion, integrity, innovation and excellence. Tennis Canada owns and operates the premier National Bank Open presented by Rogers WTA and ATP Tour events, four professional ATP and ITF sanctioned events and financially supports four other professional tournaments in Canada. Tennis Canada operates junior national training centres/programs in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Tennis Canada is a proud member of the International Tennis Federation, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee, and serves to administer, sponsor and select the teams for Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and all wheelchair, junior and senior national teams. Tennis Canada invests its surplus into tennis development. For more information on Tennis Canada please visit our Web site at: www.tenniscanada.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Information
Montréal
Marc-Antoine Farly
Advisor, Communications and Media Relations
mafarly@tenniscanada.com or 514-444-3556
