Photo: Peter Power
On Friday, Tennis Canada announced its wild cards for the 2022 Granby National Bank Championships. The tournament, which features a WTA 250 event and an ATP Challenger, will be held from August 20 to 28 at the Tennis Saint-Luc in Granby. Players receiving wild cards for the WTA 250-level tournament are world No. 10 Daria Kasatkina (Top 20 WC), Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino, and rising Canadian star Victoria Mboko. On the men’s side, wild cards were given to Canadians Gabriel Diallo, Juan Carlos Aguilar, and Marko Stakusic.
The women’s field gets even stronger
For the first edition of the WTA 250-level event in Granby, fans will be treated to a high-quality player field with the additions of Kasatkina, Marino, and Mboko. The three wild cards will be joining the likes of National Bank Open presented by Rogers’ runner-up Beatriz Haddad Maia (world No. 16) of Brazil, Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck (world No. 42), and Anna Bondar (world No. 55) of Hungary in the main draw.
Kasatkina, who is on a two-match losing streak since winning Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose earlier this month, will look to regain her form ahead of the US Open in September. Despite her two recent losses, the world No. 10 will be among the favourites heading into the Granby National Bank Championships.
Leading the Canadian contingent in Granby is world No. 113 Marino. The Vancouverite has had a tremendous 2022 season and broke back into the Top 100 in early July thanks to deep runs at multiple ITF tournaments. A few weeks ago, Marino qualified for the main draw in Washington and defeated Venus Williams and Andrea Petkovic en route to the Citi Open quarter-final.
Joining Marino as the only other Canadian in the women’s draw is Mboko, the 15-year-old up-and-comer from Toronto, Ontario. Mboko most recently won her very first professional title at the $25,000 Saskatoon Challenger and looks to keep making her mark on the professional circuit.
Three Canadians added to the men’s draw
Set to compete in the Granby National Bank Championships main draw for the first time in their careers are wild cards Diallo, Aguilar, and Stakusic. On Monday, Diallo, the 6-foot-7 Montreal native, earned his first ATP Challenger main-draw win against Belgium’s Zizou Bergs at the Odlum Brown VanOpen. His compatriots Aguilar and Stakusic will both be looking to accomplish that feat, as they head to Granby for main-draw action.
Wild cards for the qualifying rounds of both the women’s and men’s events will be announced in due course.
In 2022, TVA Sports is the official French-language broadcaster of the National Bank Championships. Fans can stay up to date by following Tennis Canada’s official accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as the website https://nationalbankchampionships.com.
