Idly scrolling through the media notes at the National Bank Open — a Masters 1000 which sadly has unfolded as something less than a grand-worthy spectacle — I land on the bio page for Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and feel a stab of pity.
The second-best Spaniard with a racket, and likely evermore stuck there behind Carlos Alcaraz, has been seven years a pro on the tour and never won a single title, not even a homely ATP 250.
But turn the page and sympathy is abruptly dispelled: The guy’s racked up $8,949,034 (U.S.) in prize money. Not counting the cheque he’ll pocket for his labours up at Sobeys Stadium over the past week.
It’s an itinerant lifestyle for tennis players in a sport with an 11-month season, a nomadic and grinding existence from pit stop to pit stop. But it does have its privileges and benefits, where even a hack — relatively speaking, and Fokina is no hack — can rake in the lucre even when not surviving beyond a couple of early rounds, even after shelling out for all the expenses, airfare and lodging and coach, because all bills go to the player.
Vasek Pospisil, who retired at this event after one final loss, spent nearly two decades before the mast but went 0-for-career on the singles tour as well, although the 35-year-old was part of Canada’s triumphant Davis Cup team in 2022. And though Pospisil only pulled down 480 bucks this year, the record shows he amassed $7,202,229 in career earnings.
Not half bad for a tennis bum life — meaning no disrespect, just the on-court version of a surf bum’s gnarly existence.
Pospisil’s retirement ceremony was an emotional touchstone for the NBO, É«É«À² version. But there hasn’t been a ton of drama or keepsake memories up at York University — unlike the women’s dramaturgy arc over in Montreal, first with Genie Bouchard’s gallant and touching swan song, then with É«É«À²-raised and rising teenage star Victoria Mboko knocking off No. 1 seed and world No. 2 Coco Gauff. It’s standing room only, even for Mboko’s practices, heading into the quarterfinals.
The É«É«À² event lost much of its glitz when three of the top seeds — Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic — withdrew citing exhaustion and niggling injuries. Because of where it’s slotted on the ATP schedule, hard on the heels of Wimbledon halfway through the season, this tournament is vulnerable to disappointing pullouts. Further quashing excitement was the early elimination of top-drawer Canadians Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov, bounced in their opening matches.
In retrospect, it was a poor decision to extend the NBO to 12 days, providing yet one more excuse for marquee players to take a pass because that’s a significant commitment, immediately in the wake of the Citi Open in Washington. Fokina, runner-up in D.C., complained heatedly on social media about drawing an 11 a.m. start for his first match here. Although, puh-leeze, hardly that arduous — he flew to É«É«À² on a private jet with Alex de Minaur, Citi crown in his carry-on.
Tournament director Karl Hale, in his midway press conference, conceded that there have been player complaints about the too-busy schedule: “We are obviously disappointed in the withdrawals but we’ve spoken to the players.’’ The issue will be on the agenda when ATP CEO Andrea Gaudenzi gets here.
Adding insult to injury was the Sportsnet decision not to produce its own TV coverage through the first week (until Saturday) instead using the ATP in-house world broadcast feed. This is called the “National Bank Open presented by Rogers’’ after all. They’re the damn co-sponsor. Yet Rogers, rolling in dough, opted to do it on the cheap. That resulted in Canadian tennis fans denied the opportunity to watch Auger-Aliassime’s match and a ton of irate Sportsnet customers.
“Obviously what happened, we didn’t want that to happen,’’ said Hale. “We’re going to have those discussions (about Sportsnet producing the full event in the future). We’ve already started it. So I think there will be a better solution going forward as we move along.’’
Hale should revisit the prolonged 12-day menu, too, and ditch it despite the near-sellout attendance. Staggering matches with a day off in between kills momentum for fans of a particular player.
Getting back to the aforementioned Fokina — who somehow managed to squeeze a wedding into his recent schedule — he’s still looking for his first tour title. On Sunday afternoon, the 20th seed had three championship points on Andrey Rublev’s serve in their round-of-16 encounter, a match that ground on without a single break until the second game of the third set.
Put another way, sixth-seed Rublev — the ginger guy who’s not Sinner — was two points from defeat before rallying in the second set and taking the tiebreak as his opponent was clearly labouring with muscle cramps. Fokina signalled time and outta here, retiring at 6-7(3), 7-6(2) and 3-0 after two hours and 21 minutes.
Earlier in the day, de Minaur took Frances Tiafoe off the board 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.
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