Over recent years, it became evident that the Canadian tennis scene is changing their face. Currently, Canada is home to many teenage tennis stars, all flexing their tennis muscles and ready to move up the ladder to the top ranks. Let’s explore who are some of these top tennis teenagers are, putting the Canadian flag high up in the ranks.
Bianca Andreescu
The 19-year-old tennis star recently moved up to the 14th place in the WTA ranks. Andreescu is Canadian born in Mississauga in Ontario. Both her parents are Romanian and moved to Canada shortly of graduating in Romania. Andreescu started playing tennis at the young age of seven when her parents moved back to Romania.
Only a few years later the family returned to Mississauga, and when Andreescu was 11-years old, she started to take her tennis career serious when joining up with Tennis Canada’s National Training Program based in Toronto. During 2014 she won her first junior title at the Grade 5 tournament held in Havana. From there she has only gone from strength to strength in delivering a game which is considered fun to watch, with Martina Navratilova commenting that she is bringing more to a game than just banging a ball.
Félix Auger-Aliassime
Another 19-year old currently ranked 21 on the ATP singles rankings. This is making him the youngest player at the moment ranked under the top 100 at the ATP. He was born in Montreal and grew up in L’Ancienne-Lorette in Quebec City. His mother is a Canadian from Quebec, and his father is from Togo in Africa. He started off playing tennis already at the age of four years, and he has a sister, Malika, who is also playing tennis. He won his first IFT junior single in 2015 at the G3 held in Queretaro. His style is considered to be precise, and he is instrumental at serving. He can perform well on all kinds of courts, although his best performance is on clay. His athletic skills are considered to be excellent.
Denis Shapovalov
Currently ranked at 34th place on the ATP rankings, being the youngest player to break through the top 30 since 2005. He was born in Tel Aviv to Russian parents. His mother was a member of the Russian National Tennis Team before the collapse of the Soviet Union. His mother is Jewish, and the family moved to Tel Aviv where Denis was born. Before he turned one year old, the family moved to Canada. His mother has been his coach for a large part of his career, and during 2018 Rob Steckley joined his coaching team. He won his first singles title in 2015 at the ITF Futures held in Weston.
Although not all of the up and coming young stars in Canadian tennis are children of immigrants, these three are indeed capturing the world’s attention and transforming the future of tennis in Canada.