Canada's Félix Auger-Aliassime speaks to reporters in Montreal on Thursday ahead of the start of the National Bank Open, where he is the second seed in the men's field.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
Organizers on site at the National Bank Open in Montreal worked fast earlier this week to swap out promotional materials featuring world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, after the five-time Grand Slam champion withdrew from the tournament at IGA Stadium just over a week before its opening.
Those running Canada’s marquee annual pro tennis tournament, slated for Aug. 1-13, have had to sharpen their “show-must-go-on” mentality again this year.
The ATP event in Montreal won’t feature the world’s top three stars. The simultaneously held WTA version of the tournament in Toronto will have its stars, but not its defending champ, the Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko.
It all points to a bright spotlight on Montreal’s own Félix Auger-Aliassime. Currently ranked a career high No. 4, the 25-year-old receives the second seed, his highest-ever seeding at an ATP Masters 1000 tournament. Reigning French Open champion Alexander Zverev tops the opposite side of the draw as the No. 1 seed. Auger-Aliassime will kick off his tournament against either Luca Van Assche or a qualifier.
Already this season Auger-Aliassime made the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, pushing Novak Djokovic to a memorable five-setter before exiting the All-England Club. He also rallied to the semis of last summer’s U.S. Open, where he lost to Sinner. As the highest-seeded Canadian in the Open Era at this event, he’s got his best shot yet at winning this hard-court tournament, where his deepest run was to the quarters in 2022.
Auger-Aliassime won’t need to face Djokovic, who withdrew last week. Nor does he need to worry about Carlos Alcaraz, who is still out with the right wrist injury that forced him to miss the French Open and Wimbledon.
Auger-Aliassime called it “a shame” not to have all the best players. The three biggest draws in men’s tennis didn’t play last year in Toronto either.
“I’ve loved this tournament, especially being from here, since I’m a kid,” he said earlier in the week. “I’ve come here to watch the best players – Roger [Federer], Novak, Rafa [Nadal], they’ve all played here.
“I would rather have all the best players and beat all the players.”
Auger-Aliassime plays a shot during his enthralling five-set loss to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon quarter-finals on July 7.Matthias Hangst/Getty Images
Organizers at the NB Open hoped this summer would be different. The tournament has a slightly different spot in this year’s calendar – giving players three weeks of rest after Wimbledon instead of two like last summer. But the new date didn’t fix an old problem.
“We thought we were in a better place on the calendar,” said the tournament director in Montreal, Valérie Tétreault.
Canada’s marquee summer tennis tournament is always scheduled in an unenviable spot, wedged between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. It also shares that time period with the Cincinnati Open, which is jammed in right after the Canadian event – overlapping slightly. It doesn’t give players much time to recover before the slam in New York. Sinner and Djokovic are playing Cincinnati this year, but not Montreal.
The tennis calendar is already overcrowded and will become more crammed soon. By 2028, the ATP plans to add a 10th Masters 1000 event, in Saudi Arabia. Tennis Canada says it is in discussions with the ATP to explore solutions to these high-profile withdrawals, to protect the integrity of the Masters 1000 tournaments, so fans can see the best players. Some other 1000 events have had the same problem, like Shanghai and Paris.
“We feel like there’s definitely openness from the ATP to push this conversation, and the other 1000 [organizers] as well,” Tétreault said. “I think we really need to work together as a group to figure out a solution, and of course, hear from the players as well.”
Nearly all of the WTA’s best are playing the Toronto event, headlined by world No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam winner Aryna Sabalenka, who withdrew from the Canadian tournament last year. All top five ranked women are in the singles draw, including Elena Rybakina, two-time tournament champion Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva. Wimbledon finalist and world No. 6 Karolina Muchova is a notable absence, after recovering from a procedure, but she plans to play Cincinnati.
But the woman Canadians most wanted to see isn’t playing – defending champ Mboko. The now 19-year-old world No. 12 was slated to be the face of her hometown tournament, a year after her fairytale run to the title as a wildcard in Montreal. She’s been sidelined since injuring her left knee on grass in June.
Victoria Mboko celebrates her win over Naomi Osaka in the National Bank Open final in Montreal last August.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Leylah Annie Fernandez (30th) is the only seeded player among the eight Canadian woman in the singles draw. The tournament’s 2019 champion, Bianca Andreescu, received a wild card.
In 2025, three Canadian men were seeded for the first time in tournament history, so they enjoyed first-round byes. This year, only FAA is in that category. Canada’s contingent includes Denis Shapovalov (now the world No. 67) and Gabriel Diallo (No. 92), who got a main draw wild card.
The men have long earned bigger prize money than the women at their corresponding Canadian Open tennis tournaments. But the NB Open began to close that gap in 2025. It further narrows this year, with the women making 79 per cent as much as the men, before they are promised equal pay in 2027.
The NB Open purse is US$9,415,725 for the ATP event this year and US$7,433,076 for the WTA’s. The men’s singles champion earns $1,151,420, while the women’s singles champ gets $1,085,220.
This is the second year in the NB Open’s expanded format – 12 days with 96-player main singles draws, increasing from the previous weeklong duration with 56 players. There are 32 doubles teams, up from 28. During the last four days, the quarter-finals, semis and final are all played in night sessions.