Three wildcards into the main draw were granted to women for the Rogers Cup in Toronto. 18-year-old Francoise Abanda is one of three wildcards. She is joined by NCAA tournament runner-up Carol Zhao and Gabriela Dabrowski. These three women make it four Canadian women in the main draw with Eugenie Bouchard the other one.
Meet the wildcards
Abanda is from Montreal and has played mostly Challenger events this season. She’s ranked outside the top 300 with her best result coming in the Surprise Challenger making into the semifinals. The last event she played was in Canada at the Granby Challenger where she lost her opener to Akari Inoue.
Zhao is Chinese-Canadian and is currently attending Stanford University but also spends time playing on the Challenger Tour. The junior for the Cardinal was the NCAA singles runner-up losing to North Carolina’s Jamie Loeb in the title match. She has an impressive resume in her two years in Palo Alto as she’s been named in All-American in her both years there. She was also a junior Australian Open champion.
Dabrowski is the Canadian number two behind Bouchard. She has played in mostly qualifiers for main draw WTA events this season. Her last event was Wimbledon qualifying where she lost to upstart American Louisa Chirico, who is having a fantastic run at the Citi Open this week.
Canadians sweep the wildcards for qualifiers as well
Four Canadians get wildcards into the qualifiers as well which makes it seven out of seven for wildcards for the Canadians in Toronto. Toronto natives Sharon Fichman, Heidi El-Tabakh, and Katherine Sebov are all into the qualifiers. 16-year-old Charlotte Robillard-Millette is the last wildcard into the qualifiers. She is the youngest to receive a wildcard amongst females with fellow countryman David Volfson, who is 17 years old, the youngest male to receive a wildcard into the qualifiers.