McIntyre Tennis

Françoise Abanda Refocused for 2019

Article and Photography By Mike McIntyre

Count Canada’s Françoise Abanda as someone who was happy to turn the page on 2018. The just-turned 22 year old had a trying season both on and off the tennis court last season and says she is ready to grind it out in order to get things back on track.

On the cusp of being ranked in the top 100 towards the end of 2017, Abanda was unable to take a step forward in her professional growth due to a combination of injuries and off-court distractions that stalled her progress.

Abanda wisely decided to skip the Australian tennis swing to start this year, opting instead to play a series of Challenger events in the United States. Despite the lure of attempting to qualify for the first Grand Slam of the season she chose the path that she felt would help her improve her ranking for better opportunities down the road.

“I just decided to play smaller events regarding my ranking and also I’m looking to playing more matches so I think it was just a smarter move to play some lower tournaments and try to grind and get a lot of matches under my belt.”

Abanda’s decision reaped some immediate success as she made her way to the finals in Daytona Beach where she ultimately fell to 6^th seed Anna Bondar by a score of 6-7(3), 7-6(5), 7-5. She followed that up with a first round loss in Plantation, Florida and Midland, Michigan but nevertheless seems inspired to stay positive as she gets her game back to where she believes it can be.

Her assessment of 2018 is fair given her 14-20 record which includes both qualifying and main draw matches at the Challenger and WTA level. Abanda also reveals an ability to keep things in perspective in her comments and allows for a bit of self-depreciating humour as well.

“For me as a player it was obviously not a good year. Not a year I wanted to have. It’s the ups and downs of tennis. My situation is also difficult because I don’t have a full time coach. It’s tough to improve my game. I’m trying to manage everything and hopefully (this) year is going to be better – it shouldn’t be too hard (laughs).”

One moment that will stand out for many when looking back on Abanda’s season in 2018 were the comments she made on Twitter following her ascension to the No. 1 ranking in Canada. She was tagged in a tweet that stated that she would not receive the same kind of attention that Genie Bouchard did when she assumed the role of Canada’s top female tennis player. Abanda now admits she did not realize the swift reaction she would receive when she replied that she would never receive that kind of attention because she was black.

When I asked her about that decision and whether or not she has any regrets about her response she replied without hesitation and addressed the fallout full on.

“This is the most asked question of my life. For me I was just speaking for myself. My intention was not to attack anybody or point fingers but it’s a delicate subject because everybody has their opinions. In a way I’m happy that I just spoke out for myself and the next up-and-coming girls or guys that are going to be in my situation and maybe it will help them. For me I was just speaking on my reality. I did have a lot of people supporting me and understanding where I was coming from but I did get a lot of heat because of it. I definitely got a lot of social media heat, negative heat, and that’s why now I just try to stay away from it and just kind of be low key about. I think it’s just better off for me to leave it at that.”

Challenges for Abanda this year will remain solely with her tennis she says and in that sense the biggest obstacle for her remains the grind of life as a tennis player ranked outside of the top 100 on the WTA. Not a big fan of travel, Abanda feels the wear and tear of life as a travelling tennis professional trying to deal with the ebbs and flows of competition.  

“The biggest challenge for me is the number of weeks you travel. You’re just never home so it’s tough. The second thing is to find consistency in your game and be able to come up with results every week, every tournament. It’s unrealistic – you’re not going to make the finals every tournament but every player is taking to go deep every week so it’s demanding. So I would say the expectations and the whole travelling. Personally I don’t love to travel.”

An area of positivity amongst these challenges for Abanda is the support she has received over the years from Tennis Canada. She is quick to point out how much her Tennis Federation has been there for her since she was a junior tennis player. This has been a refrain that many Canadian tennis players have echoed and is certainly not the case in every country.  

“Yeah it’s definitely a grind but in a way I’m still happy because being a Canadian athlete I’ve had the Federation supporting me throughout my junior career. They really helped a lot for sure. I think we’re lucky compared to other Federations. In that financial aspect I think the Canadian Federation is doing well. For me I’m grateful to have been in that system. It gives you the opportunity to save up during your junior career and prepare while they are paying your expenses.”

Abanda’s next event will be the Fed Cup where she will join Bianca Andreescu, Rebecca Marino and Gaby Dabrowski representing Canada in their tie February 9^th and 10^th in the Netherlands. Representing her country is something that Abanda never tires of and she is hoping to see a better outcome from last Spring when she had to withdraw just ahead of Canada’s tie against Ukraine due to a concussion she sustained in warm-up.

“I’ve always had great Fed Cup experiences. I’ve always come out and played at a really good level. I really like how you have a whole team, you’re really taken care of as a player – like a top-ten athlete, which I don’t really get when I’m in regular tournaments. I’m really happy to rep Canada and I’m hoping to play more Fed Cup. Last year was unfortunate because I was supposed to play the singles with Genie, but Bianca had to replace me because I fell during my warm up. So I ended up not playing at all.”

Finally healthy and excited at the opportunity to represent her country in International competition, this Fed Cup tie offers Abanda the opportunity to move past the unfortunate injury she sustained a year ago. At only 22 years old, the young Canadian has already accumulated her share of lessons on and off the tennis court and seems poised to do whatever it takes to make sure that 2019 is a step in the right direction as she continues her professional growth in the sport.

Carol Zhao is Canada’s New No. 1

 

By Mike McIntyre

The No. 1 ranking in Canadian women’s tennis traded hands again recently with 23 year old Carol Zhao of Richmond Hill assuming the top spot on June 11^th. The idea that Zhao could reach the top of her country’s rankings would not have even been considered a year ago. Then ranked 408^th in the WTA rankings, Zhao had just recently committed to turning pro and was only starting to learn the ins and outs of life on the road. When I congratulated her on the achievement a week before it became official, her reaction revealed that the accomplishment was still sinking in.

“Oh, thanks – I mean, (laughter) it’s ah, it’s I guess the first time someone’s said that to me!”

After taking a moment to put her new ranking into context, Zhao elaborated about what this moment means to her and how it fits-in with her overall goals as a professional tennis player.

“Quite honestly it’s not something that I’ve spent so much time thinking about. It’s not one of the main goals – to become the No. 1. Obviously it’s a nice title and it’s an honor to be able to represent Canada that way but I would say my goals have been more on personal development and seeing progress for myself and wherever that happens to put me in terms of the Canadian ranking, is not something I can really control, you know what I mean? So I’m just taking it as a bonus and hopefully I’ll be able to represent well going forward.”

Photo by Jimmie48 Tennis Photography

If tennis fans here in Canada are surprised to see Zhao’s quick ascension, don’t worry, she can relate as well. “Twelve months ago that would have been a very far, far fetched thing for me. I think I was maybe around 400-500 just coming out of college. So you can see it’s not something I have thought about a whole lot. But it’s definitely a nice thing to have happened.”

Making the decision to take a hiatus from her education at Stanford in order to pursue her chances full-time on the WTA was a big decision for Zhao but one that is clearly working out well for her so far as she just recently hit her career-high ranking of 131^st on the WTA. I asked her about the motivation for initially going the College route and she revealed that it was more about personal exploration than anything to do with tennis. She fully intends to go back and complete her final year of her degree in science technology and society.

“I mean looking back obviously I have no regrets,” Zhao explained.  “It was probably the best years of my life, the greatest experience. For me, it was very much like a personal decision not so much a tennis based decision. I really wanted that experience, I wanted to expose myself to a new environment when I was 18, 19, 20 and learn a lot of new things and see the world in a different way and all that kind of stuff. I think in turn that’s helped me with my tennis and my level maturity and all that understanding of what I do. I’m definitely glad that I chose that route.”

Photo by Mike McIntyre

The transition has been substantial from playing on the College circuit but Zhao seems to be adjusting just fine. She equates life on the pro tour to running your own business, complete with its own set of risks and rewards.

“It’s tough to manage it all but it’s part of the job. Managing your career, I kind of look at it as managing your own enterprise, as if I was doing a start-up or something. You are your own company and you’re trying to make the right investments, make the right decisions and take the right risks so that you get a good payoff.” 

The payoffs for Zhao began late during the summer of 2017. In mid-August she made the semi-finals of the $100,000 ITF event in Vancouver taking out former Canadian No. 1 Aleksandra Wozniak, Yanina Wickmayer and Ons Jabeur in the process. She then made the finals of a smaller ITF event in Tsukuba, Japan before taking things one step further and winning a similar-sized tournament on the other side of the country in Nanao. Zhao then returned to Canada where she played .500 level tennis in five events on home soil. She then made the decision to continue her season into November by returning to Asia and rediscovered her success there by winning the $100,000 event in Shenzhen, China. That saw her add 140 ranking points and jump from 221 to 150^th in the world.

Zhao attributes the sudden surge to finding her groove on the road and also starting to develop an increased sense of confidence in her abilities on the court as a full time tennis player.

“I think overall just a lot more awareness of myself as a tennis player because it was quite new to me, becoming a pro full time and developing a sense of my identity on the court and working with the right people, I think that brought out a lot of the potential that I had last year. Also just really believing that you belong. I think once you have a couple of good results that are indicative of what you can do it’s really promising and at a certain point you start to believe that you belong at a higher level. I think that’s what happened with me.”

Photo by Jimmie48 Tennis Photography

For Canadian tennis fans hoping to catch a glimpse of their new No. 1, Zhao will undoubtedly be featured later this summer in Montreal at the Rogers Cup. A main draw wildcard should be a given this time around thanks for her solid movements up the rankings. Zhao is definitely a very proud Canadian and seems to be the glue of the female Tennis Canada contingent. She has a positive relationship with many of her Canadian peers. A few examples include pairing-up with Gaby Dabrowski to win gold at the 2015 Pan Am Games, playing doubles with the younger Charlotte Robillard-Millette last summer in Toronto and most recently where she was seen catching a Taylor Swift concert with fellow Canuck Genie Bouchard in London. I asked her about her bond with her fellow Canadian pros and Zhao downplayed her role as a unifying factor amongst the group despite the fact that she is obviously a team player.

“It’s not something that I guess i intentionally do but I think the camaraderie is getting a lot better and we’re all great friends. The team atmosphere is great. Actually a lot of my closest personal friends on tour are from the Canadian women’s side. I guess we’re lucky to have that bond and with a lot of these girls I’ve also grown up with them and we’ve known each other for so many years that it’s definitely like a deeper relationship, so it’s cool.”

Speaking of Tennis Canada, after the comments that previous Canadian No. 1 Françoise Abanda had made last month about how race factored into her treatment as a tennis player, I had to ask Zhao if she had ever felt anything similar growing up. She didn’t hesitate to address the question head-on.

“I’m a first generation Chinese Canadian living and growing up in Canada. It’ something that I lived with growing up and in the tennis world I feel like your accomplishments kind of speak for themselves more than in some other fields. It’s never really bothered me that much or maybe it’s just because of what I identify as already and I’m comfortable with what I identify as. That being said, I think my message is just that I don’t think that any lack of fanfare has been intrinsically motivated by my race or my identity.”

She continued by stating that, “I’m comfortable enough in my identity to not feel the need for external validation because of my race…so I’m just really trying to become the best tennis player I can be and the best representative of my country, myself, my family and that’s really the most important thing for me.”

While most athletes probably look forward to ending an interview as quickly as possible, Zhao interjected as I was about to end our call to clarify how she felt about becoming Canada’s new No. 1. She added that, “I just wanted to clarify if I wasn’t like super clear before on the No. 1 thing, I’m obviously happy and I’m excited and honored to be in this position. The overwhelming thing I guess I feel now is to just try to continue producing results that are deserving of that position. So that’s really my focus.”

Whether she is able to hold onto the position throughout the rest of 2018 or not, it definitely appears that Zhao has the right outlook on her priorities. Her message on the merits of hard work and earning your accomplishments is also one that make her an ideal No. 1 player and role model for young Canadian tennis fans.

Françoise Abanda is Canada's New No. 1

By Mike McIntyre

Canada has a new No. 1 female tennis player in Françoise Abanda. The 21 year old supplants a fellow Montrealer in Genie Bouchard who had previously held the position since 2013. Abanda's ranking currently sits at No. 128 on the WTA Tour, which is 17 spots below her career-high that she established back in the Fall of 2017. 

The fact that Genie Bouchard has lost her lengthy hold on the top position in the Canadian rankings should come as no surprise after her compounding struggles on the court. Abanda's name has been in the mix in recent months as someone we expected might take over the No. 1 position yet she is not nearly as well known to casual tennis fans in Canada.

The young talent is now into her fifth year of playing main draw WTA events and has seen her ranking fluctuate within the top-200 in the world since September of 2016. Her career win-loss record stands at the moment at a modest 139-103 but she has shown signs of having the potential to break into the top 100 with some encouraging wins and gutsy performances over the years. 

Last summer Abanda took French Open champ Jelena Ostapenko to the brink of defeat at Wimbledon before falling by a score of 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-3 in the second round. It would have marked Abanda's first time making the final 32 of a Grand Slam event.

At the international level, Abanda's best result for Tennis Canada came in 2017 when she defeated the 51st ranked Yaroslava Shvedova and 31st ranked Yulia Putintseva to help her country maintain a position in the World Group II section of the Fed Cup.

2018 has been an up and down season so far for the young Canadian as she failed to qualify for the first major of the year in Australia before hovering at the .500 level on American hardcourts through until the end of February. In March Abanda could not find her way into the main draw of either Indian Wells or Miami and then encountered a couple of more hiccups before making the quarterfinals of an ITF event in Indian Harbour Beach, Florida. Abanda was slated to open Canada's Fed Cup tie in singles against Ukraine last month in her home town of Montreal but had a freak accident during warm-up where she tumbled and suffered a neck injury and had to withdraw and watch from the sidelines as her country advanced in the upset.

There still remains plenty of time for Abanda to achieve similar success on the WTA Tour as she did during her junior career. At the peak moment of her junior days Abanda reached a high of No. 4 in the rankings and made the semifinals of Wimbledon in 2012 in both junior singles and doubles. She also made the singles semi at the junior French Open in 2014 proving her comfort level on clay as well.

Growing up admiring the Williams sisters, Abanda seems like she could be a marketing dream for tennis in Canada. She projects a down-to-earth personality off the court and a fiercely competitive one on it. Her Instagram account also reveals someone who has interests in fashion and is comfortable in front of a camera but not at a distracting level from her day job.

Hopefully Abanda will receive the same level of support and promotion from Tennis Canada as they put behind Genie Bouchard for many years while she was Canada's top female player. Though Abanda takes a more quiet approach on social media, she does have a semi-active Twitter account and proudly tweeted on Monday about her new ranking achievement in Canada. Canadian tennis fans will undoubtedly be proudly following their new No. 1 as she continues to push forward in her developing professional tennis career. 

Women's Results from Wednesday at Roland Garros

By Mike McIntyre

Photography: Jimmie48 Tennis Photography

It is rare to see Tunisia steal the spotlight in the tennis world but that was the case on Wednesday with 22 year old Ons Jabeur shocking 6th seeded Dominika Cibulkova in straight sets 6-4, 6-3. Jabeur capture the Junior Roland Garros crown back in 2010 and played with incredible confidence in her match against Cilbulkova. She is the first Arab female tennis player to ever make the third round of a Grand Slam. Prior to this tournament she last qualified for the main draw of a major at the 2015 U.S. Open but had never actually won a round until here in Paris. Jabeur will next face Timea Bacsinszky the 30th seed.

Cibulkova was one of the players I thought was flying under the radar despite her high seeding. I guess it turns out there was a reason nobody was really mentioning her along with the Halep's and Svitolina's of the world. For someone who had made the quarter-finals in 2012 and the semi-finals in 2009 this is surely a great disappointment.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands got her first ever victory against 15th seeded Petra Kvitova 7-6(5), 7-6(5). For Kvitova the result must still seem like a win after her playing career was in doubt after a knife attack at her apartment back in December. Mattek-Sands presented a tricky and experienced opponent and the Czech's conditioning still needs some time to get back to her usual self.

Transitioning to grass court tennis after the French Open will surely give Kvitova the chance to rediscover her form and despite the long layoff she will be considered a top contender at Wimbledon next month.

Former World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki put on a clinic against a much younger and less experienced opponent. She double bageled 20 year old Canadian Françoise Abanda in their second round match. Wozniacki has a nice opportunity in her section of the draw with seeds  like Kerber, Bertens and Vinci already out of the draw. She is on track for a fourth round meeting against 2009 Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova who also advanced today.

While the young Abanda must be feeling down after the thumping by Wozniacki, she has made it to the second round of a Slam for the first time in her career and is solidifying herself as the second ranked Canadian female tennis player behind Genie Bouchard.

Some Americans are proving they can still win on clay as Shelby Rogers won 7-6, 6-4 against Çağla Büyükakçay. Rogers will next play against 13th seed Kristina Mladenovic who dispatched Sara Errani today.

Büyükakçay who is from Turkey surprised Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the opening round but then as is so often the case could not sustain the momentum from the upset in her next match.

18 year old CiCi Bellis was another American who won on Wednesday by a score of 6-3, 7-6(5) over Kiki Bertens the 18th seed. It doesn't get any easier for the young Bellis who is currently ranked 48th in the world as she will next face Wozniacki.

Bertens was a Roland Garros semifinalist just a year ago and will be losing some significant ranking points with the loss. 

Another youngster who is having early success in Paris is 19 year old Jelena Ostapenko who looked quite focused while taking to the court against Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig. The Latvian won 6-3, 6-2 to set up a match versus Lesia Tsurenko in a suddenly wide open top quarter of the draw. Between the two of them, Mattek-Sands and Sam Stosur, one will be guaranteed of making the quarter-finals.

Puig has still been unable to build upon her epic Olympic gold medal from last summer in Rio.