First Serve: Canadians on the pro tennis tours this week

The week before the French Open is one of those odd weeks on tour. Most of the top players don't play – unless they feel they didn't get enough matches in and take a last-minute wild card – and the players ranked in the 100-200 range can't play because of the qualifying at the second Grand Slam of the season.

The surprise of the week is Toronto's Daniel Nestor, who is playing the final tuneup in Nice, France for the first time in his career. And he's not playing with recent partner Leander Paes (who is not playing).

Instead, Nestor signed on with Alexander Peya of Austria, whose regular partner, Brazil's Bruno Soares, also is not playing anywhere this week. So it remains to be seen whether this is an audition of sorts given Nestor and Paes' struggles early in their partnership, or a one-off to get in some match play and help his ranking.

Paes and Nestor are still on the official entry lists for the French Open, the Wimbledon gras-court warmup events and Wimbledon itself).

Nestor and former partner Nenad Zimonjic won both Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome a year ago; with Nestor's early exits this year, his doubles ranking has fallen out of the top 20, to No. 22. Nestor and Peya won their first-round match on Monday, a tight one against Brits Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray)

Pickering, Ont.'s Adil Shamasdin and Australian partner Rameez Junaid are playing in Geneva where they, too, are into the quarter-finals.

As for Gloucester, Ont.'s Gabriela Dabrowski, she won two matches on Saturday to make the main draw at the women's tuneup event in Strasbourg, but fell in the first round of the main draw to Elena Vesnina of Russia.

No matter; Dabrowski is in the French Open qualifying, along with Heidi el Tabakh. The draw for the women will be made Tuesday at 4 p.m. Paris time.

Frank Dancevic is the only Canadian male in the qualifying; he will play young Frenchman Tristan Lamasine in the first round Tuesday and has a doable, though not easy, road to the main draw.

Lamasine, 22, is ranked No. 236. Montañes, 34, is a former top-25 player who has only played on red clay this year, but hasn't won a lot of matches.

Genie Bouchard stayed with her original schedule and was not a last-minute entry this week into either Strasbourg or Nürnberg, where she won her first (and so far, only) WTA Tour title a year ago.

As for Vasek Pospisil and Milos Raonic, both injured in recent weeks, there will be more news when Raonic's foot, on which he had surgery last week, is re-examined.

Pospisil is back home in Bradenton, Fla. and tells Eh Game he is making an excellent recovery that has been a pleasant surprise even to the folks who are helping him try to recover from a bad ankle twist, suffered playing doubles with American partner Jack Sock in Barcelona two weeks ago.

Popisil said the original scans of the ankle were difficult to read because of the swelling and bruising in the area, but initial fears of a fracture were ruled out. He has a severe bone bruise and and "a severe second-degree tear" of a ligament.

His intention was to hit some tennis balls in Florida before leaving for Paris Wednesday night, and he hopes to be ready to play both singles and doubles. That is very much a day-to-day thing, though.

(Bookmark this link to keep up with all the Canadian results this week. And look for Eh Game coverage live from Roland Garros as of Thursday).