Montreal’s super-sized showdown kicks off WTA 1000 summer

With Iga Swiatek chasing ground in the Race, Coco Gauff as top seed, and Jessica Pegula seeking a rare three-peat, Montreal’s 12-day WTA 1000 is loaded.

While some of the Hologic WTA Tour’s finest were grinding in the extreme heat of Washington, D.C., Iga Swiatek was basking under a gentler sun with friends. After blowing through a perfect Wimbledon final in which she didn’t lose a single game, Swiatek posted pics of herself on a large boat and riding a jet-ski.

“Recharged, smiling, with some amazing memories,” she posted. “Let’s kick off another chapter of this season.”

Which is a nice segue to the Omnium Banque Nationale présenté par Rogers in Montreal, Canada, where main-draw play began Sunday. It’s the first of back-to-back Hologic WTA Tour 1000 events leading up to the season’s final major, the US Open in New York.

Montreal: Draws | Scores | Order of play

It’s a super-sized 12-day tournament, featuring a 96-player draw and more than $5 million in total prize money. Swiatek will be the No. 2 seed behind French Open champion Coco Gauff.

Swiatek, already the best clay-court player of her generation with four Roland Garros titles, displayed a new skill set at Wimbledon, mastering the grass. She’s already an established hand on hard courts -- in 2022, she won five hard-court titles alone, including the US Open.

Since the inception of WTA 1000s in 2009, only Serena Williams has a better winning percentage than Swiatek’s 114-27 (.809). Since the start of the 2020 season, Swiatek has the most WTA 1000 wins (111); Aryna Sabalenka is next with 101.

The World No. 1 is sitting this one out, so here is a chance for Swiatek and others to close some ground in the PIF Race to the WTA Finals in Riyadh.

The standings: Sabalenka 7,395, Swiatek 5,983, Coco Gauff 4,609, Madison Keys 4,105. Swiatek, Gauff and Keys, winners of the season’s first three Grand Slams, are all in play this week in Canada.

Some storylines to savor:

Pegula eyes three-peat

Only one woman -- Monica Seles, has won three straight titles in Canada. Pegula is trying to match that. She defended her title last year in Toronto, pushing her overall record in Canada to a terrific 17-2.

“Definitely my favorite part of the year. I love being in North America,” Pegula said in Washington, D.C. “I love playing on the hard courts. Always just a fun swing for me.”

Last year, Pegula followed up her title-run in Toronto by reaching the finals in Cincinnati and New York. This year, however, she’ll be starting from scratch. After winning the title on grass in the Bad Homburg 500, she’s lost her past two matches, including last week’s straight-sets loss to Leylah Fernandez in Washington, D.C.

Pegula is looking to join Serena Williams (Miami) and Sabalenka (Wuhan) as the only women since 2009 to win three straight editions of this WTA 1000.

Notable first-round matchups

Wild card and 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu already defeated two-time Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova on Sunday night.

2025 D.C. finalist Leylah Fernandez vs. two-time 2025 winner Maya Joint

Freshly minted Prague champion Marie Bouzkova vs. Moyuka Uchijima

Emma Raducanu vs. Elena-Gabriela Ruse

Maria Sakkari vs. wild card Carson Branstine

Naomi Osaka vs. qualifier Ariana Arseneault

Wild cards … are wild

In the Open Era, Faye Urban (1969) and Andreescu (2019) are the only two Canadian women to win the Canadian Open title.

Andreescu, currently ranked at No. 188 with a record of 9-8 this year, is looking for a fresh start at home. She’s one of seven Canadian wild cards in the main draw and she had her hands full in Sunday’s first-round match against Krejcikova but prevailed 6-3, 6-4.

Monica Seles (1995) is the only woman in the Open Era to win the title at the Canadian Open as a wild card.

Young and already dangerous

World No. 5 Mirra Andreeva, who turned 18 in April, has been historically precocious in these 1000 events. She’s already 36-13 (.735) and her opening match in Montreal will be her 50th. Only Serena (40) and Venus Williams (39) won more times in their first 50 matches.

At 15 years 129 days, Jennifer Capriati (1991) was the youngest woman in the Open Era to win the Canadian Open title.

No. 41 Maya Joint (19) is also in the main-draw mix. She will play Fernandez in the first round.

Oh, Canada

Eugenie Bouchard, at the age of 31, will play her last match this week in the city in which she began her career, at the age of five, training at Tennis Canada’s National Training Centre.

She won the Wimbledon junior title in 2012 and, one year later, the 2013 WTA Newcomer of the Year. In 2014, she reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and, at the age of 20, the finals at Wimbledon. Later that year she would find herself ranked a career-high No. 5.

“I want to soak up every moment of love and tennis and the hard stuff on the court, the amazing stuff off the court,” she said in Washington, D.C. “I want to make it like a celebration, not a funeral, and see everybody.”

Bouchard faces Emiliana Arango Monday night in the first round.

The history

This is the 57th edition of the Canadian Open for women. Some historical tidbits:

Chris Evert and Monica Seles both appeared in six finals and won four titles.

Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (42) has appeared in the most matches in the Open Era, holding a win-loss record of 32-10.

Seles (31-3, .912) holds the best winning percentage in the Open Era.

Quiz time

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