Wild cards announced at Rogers Cups in Montreal and Toronto

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The suspense is over, although there weren't too many surprises in Tennis Canada's wild-card selections for next week's Rogers Cup.

The promotion of Vasek Pospisil into the main draw after several late withdrawals meant they had an extra one to give. In addition to 17-year-old Denis Shapovalov, the junior Wimbledon champion, those free passes went to Steven Diez, Frank Dancevic and Peter Polansky, the next three highest-ranked players on the ATP Tour.

Diez, nominally a Canadian, lives and trains in Spain. The 25-year-old is the highest-ranked player after Milos Raonic and Pospisil, at a career-best No. 190 this week.

On the women's side in Montreal, Aleksandra Wozniak and Françoise Abanda, two Montrealers, received the free passes along with Caroline Garcia of France.

Abanda and Wozniak played the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. this week, both losing in the first round to wild-card players. Abanda was to have played in the doubles Wednesday with Varvara Flink of Russia, but the pair gave their opponents a walkover win.

The awarding of the wild card to Garcia – beyond the fact that many on the high-performance staff at Tennis Canada are French – is a reciprocal arrangement. In return, they'll received a wild card into the French Open qualifying on the women's side from the French federation.

The wild cards into the qualifying are as follows. For the men, it will be juniors Félix Auger-Aliassime and Benjamin Sigouin, veteran Philip Bester and college player Brayden Schnur. For the women, juniors Bianca Andreescu and Charlotte Robillard-Millette will receive free passes, along with doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski and Carol Zhao, the 21-year-old who played three years at Stanford University before leaving to try her luck on the pro tour this spring.

Dabrowski is the top seed in doubles in D.C. this week, and plays her quarter-final match Wednesday.