First Serve – Canadians on the pro tennis tours this week

It's going to be a tough turnaround for Canada's Olympians, after so many experiences (and heartbreaks) in Rio de Janeiro last week.

They couldn't even stick around and enjoy the rest of the Games and cheer on their fellow athletes. For all of them, it was back on a red-eye and back to reality, the (non) scenic burg of Mason, Ohio just outside Cincinnati.

The Western & Southern Open is the main warmup event for the US Open, which begins in just two weeks, and Milos Raonic is back.

The top Canadian skipped the Olympics to instead prepare properly for an assault on the US Open title, and clearly he's looking for more matches. He is teamed up for doubles with Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.

Genie Bouchard played the qualifying – the first time she has not been directly into the main draw of a WTA Tour event in 2 1/2 years, due mostly to the smaller draw size necessitated by the Olympic event.

She got through her two matches in fairly routine fashion, and drew Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic in the first round. Strycova won bronze in the women's doubles with Lucie Safarova, so she arrived in Cincinnati well after Bouchard did and has no matches under her belt. The courts in Cincinnati will be a whole lot faster than what they played on Rio.

Vasek Pospisil will play Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the first round and if he gets through that, would face ... Gaël Monfils. For the third tournament in a row. There seem to be some among the draw gods who just won't cut this guy a break.

Pospisil and Daniel Nestor, who went from gold-medal contention to off the podium in a 24-hour span in Rio, are the No. 6 seeds in the doubles draw. They have a first-round bye and could face Stan Wawrinka and Grigor Dimitrov in the second round.

Gabriela Dabrowski, who teamed up with Bouchard for doubles in Rio, is back with partner Maria José Martínez Sánchez of Spain as they prepare for the US Open together.

In other Canadian news, Steven Diez and Peter Polansky are directly into the US Open qualifying, with Frank Dancevic (as of Monday) 11 spots out.

He's likely to make it, though. Some players won't make the trip over from Europe, and the wild cards into the main draw haven't been announced yet. Thre are 14 Americans on the qualifying list and some will certainly make it – including veteran Rajeev Ram, barely out of the main draw with a ranking of No. 105 at the cutoff date Aug. 1, but a newly-minted silver-medalist in Olympic mixed doubles with Venus Williams.

On the women's side, Françoise Abanda is three spots out at the moment and is just about a sure thing to make it in, for the same reasons.

Most of the Canadian players not in Rio last week played in the men's and women's Challenger event in Gatineau, Quebec last week. These tournaments are a great opportunity for a country's players to get pro experience and earn ranking points without having to travel far from home. And two Canadians took full advantage of that opportunity.

Bianca Andreescu, the 16-year-old who reached the final in Gatineau a year ago, did one better this year and took the title at the $25,000 event. She defeated American Ellie Halbauer 6-2, 7-5 to win her first pro event (even though she has not yet turned pro). She also won the doubles with Blainville, Que.'s Charlotte Robillard-Millette.

On the men's side, Richmond Hill's Polansky won his first Challenger event in three years when opponent Vincent Millot retired after the second set of their final.

Millot, a Frenchman who is married to a Québécoise and plays a lot of tournaments here every year, was extremely upset after learning of a death in the family the previous night and could not continue.

“In my opinion, I won this match because of the effort I put in to come from behind and get back on even terms. I fought really well and we played two high quality sets. I am sad for Millot, but I understand his decision and I respect it," was the quote from Polansky in the Tennis Canada press release.

Polansky and doubles partner Philip Bester have been playing in the US Open national wild-card playoffs this summer. It's an event open to anyone (even you and I, if we wanted to sign up), and has regional qualifying. The winners of those head to New Haven, Conn. next week to vie for the opportunity to earn a wild card into the main doubles draw.

Polansky and Bester won the Florida sectionals, played in early June. They'll fight for the wild card Aug. 21-24. Countrywoman Erin Routliffe and her University of Alabama partner Maya Jensen won the women's doubles wild card a year ago exactly this way.

In another piece of good Canadian tennis news, Daniel Nestor's Wimbledon partner Dominic Inglot has let him out of his commitment to team up again in New York. And so Nestor and Vasek Pospisil have entered the men's doubles together.

It's a gracious thing for Inglot (who is not yet entered in New York with anyone else; the deadline is Friday) to do; Nestor said in Rio that they had been discussing it and that if he were in that spot, seeing that his partner was having a good stretch of play with another partner, he would do the same thing.

Nestor and Inglot are still entered together in the ATP tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C. next week, where at this point they would be the top seeds.

(To keep up with all the Canadian results this week, bookmark this link).