Canada’s Leylah Fernandez gets Olympic 1st round challenge in Muchova

Canadian tennis player Leylah Annie Fernandez will be facing a big challenge in the first round of the women’s singles competition at the Paris Olympic Games when she takes on Czech player Karolina Muchova. 

The 16th-seeded Fernandez learned at Thursday’s draw that she’d be taking on the 2023 French Open finalist when competition gets underway at Roland-Garros stadium.

Muchova, who is ranked 29th in the world, won the only previous match the two have played — on the hard court in Miami in 2022.

Bianca Andreescu, Canada’s other female singles entry, will play 63rd-ranked Clara Tauson of Denmark in the first round. 

On the men’s side, 13th-seeded Félix Auger-Aliassime will hope to surpass his first-round defeat at the Tokyo Games when he confronts 38th ranked American Marcos Giron in Paris. 

Milos Raonic, in his first Olympics since London 2012, will face Germany’s Dominik Köpfer.

Auger-Aliassime reached the quarterfinals last week in Gstaad, Switzerland.

He also played well on clay this spring, reaching the final at the Madrid Masters and the round of 16 at the French Open.

The 24-year-old from Quebec has won three of the four previous matches he’s played against Giron. 

Auger-Aliassime will also team up with Raonic in doubles and Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski in mixed doubles

The fifth-seeded pair of Fernandez and Dabrowski will face France’s Clara Burel and Varvara Gracheva in the first round of the women’s doubles tournament. 

Canada has only won one Olympic tennis medal, which was a gold by Sébastien Lareau and Daniel Nestor at the Sydney Games in 2000.

In other play, top-seeded Novak Djokovic could meet his longtime rival Rafael Nadal in the second round of the Paris Olympic tennis tournament.

Djokovic was drawn Thursday against Australian Matthew Ebden and Nadal faces Hungarian Marton Fucsovics, with the winners of those matches meeting in Round 2.

— This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2024.