Canadian Davis Cup rookie Liam Draxl is the favorite this week at the ITF M25 tournament in Laval, Quebec, which runs from Feb. 1 to Feb. 2.is as of July 7.
This is the first professional men’s tournament of the year held in Canada, not counting the Davis Cup tie in February in which Draxl participated as a member of Team Canada presented by Sobeys, and the first professional event since the women’s tournament in Montreal in March.
In the first round, Draxl will face fellow countryman Keegan Rice, the second-best junior in the country. The 18-year-old is gradually moving away from junior competition to make the transition to the professional ranks.
In total, 13 Canadians are in the 32-player field. Along with Draxl, Justin Boulais is the sixth seed. Boulais recently finished the NCAA season ranked No. 2 in Canadian singles. He too will face a compatriot in the first round, Carlos Aguilar. Boulais could face Draxl in the quarterfinals.
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Taha Baadi, Canada’s number one NCAA seed, has earned a bye to take part in the Laval tournament. His first opponent will be Justin Roberts of the Bahamas.
Four other Canadians who finished the school year ranked in the NCAA will also be in the game: Joshua Lapadat (who was Canada’s No. 1 doubles player), Cleeve Harper (doubles runner-up at the individual championships), Duncan Chan (member of TCU’s championship team) and Alvin Tudorica.
Harper, Chan and Tudorica had to go through qualifying rounds to earn a spot in the main draw. American Eliot Spizziri, Harper’s doubles partner at the University of Texas, is the seventh seed.
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In raising the curtain, Lapadat will be opposed to the Frenchman Clement Chidekh (2e).
Rice isn’t the only young Canadian competing in Laval. Recent ITF J60 champion Mikael Arseneault has qualified for the main draw and will be competing in his first professional tournament of the year. Arseneault has reached the finals in his last three ITF junior tournaments.
In addition to the Draxl-Rice and Boulais-Aguilar clashes, there is another duel between two Canadians, that of Chan and Sasha Rozin, the winner of which will face Lapadat or Chidekh.
