One victory, 11 defeats for Canadian players in Rogers Cup qualifying

MONTREAL – The final scores were nothing to write home about, even though they ARE home.

In Montreal:

[WC] Brayden Schnur (CAN) def [12] Ruben Bemelmans (BEL) 64 63

[1] Nicolas Mahut (FRA) def [ALT] Isade Juneau (CAN) 61 75
[5] Yen-Hsun Lu (TPE) def [WC] David Volfson (CAN) 61 61
[6] Hyeon Chung (KOR) def [ALT] Kelsey Stevenson (CAN) 62 61
[10] Rajeev Ram (USA) def [WC] Peter Polansky (CAN) 76 (4) 76 (5)

In Toronto:

[18] Olga Govortsova (BLR) vs. [WC] Bianca Andreescu (CAN) 75 60
[16] Jarmila Gajdosova (AUS) def [WC] Heidi el Tabakh (CAN) 64 62
[17] Irina Falconi (USA) vs. [WC] Sharon Fichman (CAN) 63 61
[14] Polona Hercog (SLO) def [WC] Natasha Irani (CAN) 62 61
[23] Mariana Duque Mariño (COL) def [WC] Charlotte Robillard-Millette (CAN) 64 63
[3] Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (CRO) def. [WC] Katherine Sebov (CAN) 64 61

Pickering, Ont.'s Brayden Schnur was the only Canadian among the 11 in action to win. He also was the only Canadian to even win a set.

Runner-up was Peter Polansky, who is just coming back from wrist surgery and was more than competitive against American veteran Rajeev Ram.

Schnur, in somewhat of a surprise, outclassed Belgian lefty Ruben Bemelmans in a fairly routine match that had a hiccup only at the end, when he served for the match. Despite the three double-faults, Schnur still managed to close it out in front of a large and pretty vocal group of supporters.

Here's how he did it:

Polansky led Ram, mostly a doubles specialist but one who has played some quality singles of late, 5-4 in the second-set tiebreak. But he couldn't get over the finish line and push it to a decider.

There were a few extra spots in the Montreal qualifying draw, and players like Repentigny's Isade Juneau, who has played at the Futures level this year and played college tennis for the Indiana Hoosiers, gave No. 1 qualifying seed Nicholas Mahut a good fight in the second set.

Here's what Polansky and Juneau looked like.

You have to think that Juneau didn't exactly come on court thinking he had much of a shot.

You don't often see a player leave the court and then ask for a photo with the guy who defeated him in an actual match. But that's what happened.

There are only two rounds of qualifying for the men; Schnur will meet Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei Sunday to get to the Rogers Cup singles main draw out of the qualifying for the second straight year, after he did it last year in Toronto.

As for the women, well, four of the six candidates are just kids and a fifth, Sharon Fichman, has hardly played over the last 12 months.

She was happy just to be out there.