To whom Canada: what awaits our tennis players in Montreal and Toronto

Russian tennis players continue to perform in North America and prepare for the last Grand Slam tournament in 2025. On Sunday, July 27, Anna Kalinskaya played in the finals in Washington, and this week all our tops will start at the competitions in Montreal and Toronto. For more information, see the Izvestia article.

Plus 17 positions

​​Anna Kalinskaya is not having the best season, but in Washington, the Russian showed great tennis. She reached the final (although before this tournament she had a negative balance of wins and losses in 2025), beating Kamilla Rakhimova, Magda Linette with a steering wheel, fourth seed Clara Towson and Emma Radukana. In the semifinals, the 2021 US Open champion looked like a statistician against Kalinskaya. Especially in the second set.

Anna won all her matches in two sets, but never reached a tie-break. While her opponent in the finals, Leila Fernandez, spent a lot of energy in matches with Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula. In many ways, because of this, the Russian was considered the favorite of the final. Kalinskaya's excellent statistics against lefties added to the positive: 23:15.

However, it was possible to find statistics in favor of the Canadian. Firstly, she led in personal meetings (2-0). Secondly, Kalinskaya lost two previous finals at the WTA level: in 2024 in Dubai, Yasmin Paolini, and in Berlin she missed five match points in a confrontation with Pegula. Leila, in turn, won three out of six finals.

Fernandez took all the titles at the WTA 250 tournaments. This time, the "five hundred" submitted to her. In the final, she played very strongly, uninhibitedly, dominating both games played. The real fight went only until the middle of the first game. In the third game, Kalinskaya had a break point, but a powerful serve came to the Canadian's rescue (although there had been two double faults before that). After that, Anna gave up the break without a struggle, then the first set (in just 30 minutes). The situation has not changed in the second game.

This is the Canadian's first title since October 2023. Following the results of the tournament in the US capital, Fernandez will rise from 36th place in the ranking to 24th. The Russian has added 17 positions and is close to returning to the top 30.

Protecting Schneider

Fernandez is approaching the home tournament in Montreal in a great mood. In Montreal, she will start the tournament again with a match against Maya Joint (as well as in Washington). Kalinskaya also has a meeting with Ann Lee.

In addition to Anna, there were 10 more Russians in the main draw at the women's "thousandth". Mirra Andreeva (fourth seed), Ekaterina Alexandrova (12th), Lyudmila Samsonova (13th), Diana Schneider (14th) and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (27th) will start their performance from the second round. From the first — Kamilla Rakhimova, Anastasia Potapova, Anna Blinkova and the Kudermetova sisters. However, Polina has already lost her match to Susan Lamens. After a strong start to the season, the 22-year-old tennis player is on a nine-game losing streak.

But Veronica, on the contrary, finds her game. After winning the doubles Wimbledon, the former ninth racket of the world coped with Kristina Buksha and will now face Olga Danilovich. The Serbian tennis player is clearly capable of Veronica.

Mirra Andreeva also had a tough opponent in the first match. She will play with the 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, who has already beaten out the titular Barbora Krejcikova in Canada. Emma Navarro (8) plays in the same part of the grid.

Diana Schneider (who reached the semifinals last year, including beating Corey Gauff) and Ekaterina Alexandrova got into the first part of the draw, where Gauff (1) and Yasmin Paolini (7) could become their potential rivals. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is likely to compete with second seed Iga Sventek in the third round. Samsonova, who reached the quarterfinals last year, is likely to start the tournament with a match against Naomi Osaka. The day before, the four-time TBS champion announced her separation from Patrick Muratoglu. The famous French coach worked with the Japanese woman for less than a year.

Recoup for London

Four representatives of the top 6 will not play in the men's draw in Toronto: Yannick Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Jack Draper and Novak Djokovic. Therefore, Alexander Zverev received the first seeding number, who has not been able to boast high results lately, and at Wimbledon he was eliminated in the first round.

Andrey Rublev, who received the sixth number, stands above all of us in the seeding. However, this season, the 27-year-old Muscovite cannot boast of stability, as evidenced by his 16th place in the ATP championship race. In addition, Andrey will have to defend his last year's final (650 points), and this always creates additional pressure (in 2024 Rublev knocked out Sinner, but lost to Alexey Popyrin in the final). At the same time, the Russian's grid is quite successful, but again, it's too early to draw any conclusions from this.

Medvedev is the 10th seed. Although his performance in Washington can be considered unsuccessful (he was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Muthe), Daniil can expect to reach the same stage in Toronto, where an intriguing meeting with Zverev looms. There are no inconvenient opponents for Daniil before this stage, however, in the second match he can face last year's champion, Popyrin (he leads the Russian Australian 4-1).

Khachanov is right behind Medvedev in the list of seeds, but the grid looks difficult for Karen. Already in the third round, he will probably have to play with Hugo Umber. Although before that, we still have to pass qualifier Juan Fikovic, who unexpectedly defeated Jacob Fearnley in the first round.

It will also be interesting to watch Roman Safiullin in the match against Kasper Ruud. The Norwegian is clearly out of shape right now and looks like almost the most vulnerable opponent from the top eight seeds.