TORONTO — Vancouver’s Philip Bester may have failed to get out of the qualifying round in singles this year, but the 27-year-old made up for it in a big way on Tuesday. Bester joined forces with Toronto’s Adil Shamasdin to defeat the Serbian duo of Novak Djokovic (the world’s No. 1 singles player, for the unacquainted) and fellow Serbian Nenad Zimonjic by a score of 7-5, 4-6, 10-2.
Zimonjic’s name should be familiar to Canadian tennis fans: he and Daniel Nestor were one of the most successful doubles teams on the planet over the last decade and a half, reaching a whopping 40 ATP tourney finals together.
Bester and Shamasdin will now advance to face No. 7 seeds Raven Klaasen of Russia and Rajeev Ram of the United States.
Milos gets his second-round opponent
Though he spent parts of their match practising in front of a large gathering on an adjacent practice court, the top-ranked Canadian at Rogers Cup, Milos Raonic, no doubt was being appraised of the outcome of the Yen-Hsun Lu versus Alexander Zverev first-round tilt early on Tuesday, the winner of which faces Raonic Wednesday night under the lights of centre court .
Taiwan’s Lu, 32, was able to control much of the match against the 19-year-old German who, at No. 25, is easily the highest ranked teenager on tour.
Lu has seen his best success on hard court but will now square off against Raonic who is 17-3 on the surface this year and seems poised to continue from where he left off at Wimbledon, where he reached the finals. But you already knew that.
After his match Tuesday, Lu talked about the pressure he expects to face going up against the crowd favourite and face of the tournament.
“Like NBA, you go to the home team court, and (having) all the spectators against you is very tough,” said Lu, the world’s 70th-ranked player. “But, I mean, this is what he should get because he comes from the country and he’s one of the best players right now. He’s improved a lot. He’s getting more stable from the baseline. He plays all different kind of games.
“I will be a little bit nervous, for sure, you know, to go out there. But, you know, I respect him. I’m happy for him. I hope I can play my best tennis and try to enjoy the 10,000 people against me.”
Don’t tell Lu, but the Aviva Centre capacity is actually listed at 12,500. Raonic versus Lu goes down Wednesday night.
Federer done for the year
During Gael Monfils’ win against Joao Sousa Tuesday afternoon, word filtered through to the crowd of spectators and media alike that Roger Federer, one of the marquee names who pulled out of Rogers Cup, will be taking the rest of 2016 off. In an announcement posted to his Facebook page, Federer said he will be missing the Olympics, U.S. Open, and all other competition this year in order to properly rehab his knee.
“The doctors advised,” Federer wrote, “that if I want to play on the ATP World Tour injury free for another few years, as I intend to do, I must give both my knee and body the proper time to fully recover.”
“Oh yeah?” Monfils asked when told about the news during his post-match press conference. “I don’t know. I haven’t read, but I’m very sorry for him. I love Roger, so obviously — I just finished my match. I have no idea. I’m very sorry for him, that’s for sure.”
Kyrgios bounces back, PospiSock prepare to put friendship on the line
OK, maybe that’s overstating things a bit — the loveable duo of Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock were a revelation in 2014, winning Wimbledon and forming an entertaining doubles team. Now they’ll square off in Round 2 here at the Rogers Cup.
Pospisil and his partner, Daniel Nestor, No. 6 seeds in Toronto, will face off against Sock and Nick Kyrgios, who recovered from his loss/momentary lapse of reason on Monday night against teen sensation Denis Shapovalov to help pull out a doubles win Tuesday morning.
More notable CanCon on tap
Later Tuesday afternoon Denis Shapovalov will join forces with a fellow Canadian star junior, Felix Auger-Allisime in doubles action, facing the duo of Bernard Tomic and Viktor Troicki.
Shapovalov, 17, and Auger-Allisime, 15, are making major waves in the junior ranks, the former fresh off the Wimbledon title, while the latter reached the finals of the French Open earlier in the year. But the two have actually proven to be a lethal doubles combo at that level as well, winning the 2015 U.S. Open title and losing in the finals at Wimbledon.
The two bring a degree of chemistry— and undoubtedly a ton of crowd support— to their match Tuesday afternoon, but will face a challenge against a pair of notable names on the pro tour.
Troicki, a top 20 singles player this time last year, lost his first-round match Monday against six-foot-eight South African Kevin Anderson. The 30-year-old Croatian is the highest ranked doubles player in this match, currently 131, but brings a pedestrian 7-15 doubles record in 2016 to the table.
Tomic is another dangerous singles player — the Aussie is currently ranked 22nd in the world at the age of 23— and, as noted above, won his singles match Monday to set up a duel between another Canadian, Steven Diez, in the singles draw. Tomic is 1-7 in doubles competition so far this year.
And then Tuesday night on centre court, Vernon, B.C., native Vasek Pospisil will face France’s Jeremy Chardy in what’s sure to be a hard-fought first-round matchup. Pospisil, who will be teaming with fellow countryman and longtime Davis Cup partner Daniel Nestor here as the pair prepare to represent Canada at the Rio Olympics next month, enters tonight’s match the underdog, ranked 101 to Chardy’s 39. The two have never faced each other.