The biggest week in the Canadian tennis year is here, the National Bank Open. Split over two sites with the women on the WTA tour playing in Montreal while the men on the ATP tour play in Toronto. Tennis is one of the biggest sports worldwide both in terms of participation and in betting. Find the odds on both of these tour events at the National Bank Open amongst our list of the best betting sites in Canada.
Some of the biggest names in tennis have won the National Bank Open over the years. The 2023 events are full of the younger players on tour but that will just add to the competitive nature of the matches on show. Of course, if you prefer to bet on casinos rather than sport then we at FatGambler have you covered. Check out our reviews of the best online casinos so that you can find a new place to play.
Let’s get stuck into what the 2023 National Bank Open has to offer in 2023.
The Toronto side of the National Bank Open is the men’s ATP tour. It is one of the big events on the tour each year, one of the Masters 1000 events. In fact, it is only Wimbledon that has been around as long as a competition than the National Bank Open which goes to show just what a remarkable history this event has got.
The list of former winners reads as a who’s who of the greatest that the ATP tour has ever seen. A 16-year spell from 2004 to 2019 saw 14 of those 16 tournaments won by Roger Federer (two wins) , Andy Murray (three wins ) , Novak Djokovic (four wins) or Rafael Nadal (five wins) players who have dominated the sport in recent decades.
Going back further than that it was Ivan Lendl who was the dominant force in Canada, winning the event on six occasions 1980 and 1989 before Andre Agassi took over as the man to beat, winning three of four between 1992 and 1995.
The wait for home fans goes all the way back to 1958 when Robert Bédard won the last of his three titles. Fans in Toronto will be desperate to see that 65-year losing streak ended as soon as possible.
The women of the WTA tour roll into Montreal for a competition that is always high on excitement. In a similar vein to the men’s event, there is a history of the very best, household names in the sport winning in Canada.
The likes of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were dominant in the 1980s, winning six of the 10 tournaments during that decade. Monica Seles took over in the next decade, winning four consecutive titles from 1995 to 1998.
Recent tournaments have been a touch more open with 14 different winners in the 18 years between 2000 and 2017. Simona Halep has made this tournament her own of late, winning three titles in 2016, 2018 and 2022. Halep will not be back to try and retain her crown in 2023 having tested positive for a banned substance shortly after at the US Open last year.
The Toronto side of the National Bank Open looks stacked with the top talent from the ATP Tour on show. They include the recent Wimbledon champion and the 2021 winner of this event as the top two seeds in the draw.
Just 20 years old but he’s a dual Grand Slam Champion, landing the Wimbledon title earlier this year. Already the world number 1, he is one of those generational talents who could go down in the annals of the sport as one of the greatest ever to grade the ATP tour.
His win at the 2022 US Open saw him hit the top of the world rankings at a younger age than anyone since the sport became open to all in 1968. He has 12 titles and almost $20 million already earned, figures that will continue to grow at a scary rate in years to come.
The Russian star won the National Bank Open in 2021 having been a beaten finalist in 2019. It was disappointing last year then that he made it no further than the second round at this event having been given a bye in the first round.
The world number 3 does well when playing in North America, his sole Grand Slam Title coming at Flushing Meadows in 2021 when taking the US Open. He has three titles safely in the bag already in 2023 and will have his sights firmly set on number four.
A finalist here at the National Bank Open in 2018, he has also made the decider in both the Australian Open and the French Open but is yet to break his Grand Slam duck. Tsitsipas had nine ATP tour titles to his credit so it is unfair to see him as a nearly man but it’s those close misses that seem to be remembered more than the victories.
In general, Wimbledon had not been a happy hunting ground for him but he made the 4th round earlier this year so he arrives in Canada playing well. He enjoys a great rivalry with Daniil Medvedev which fans will hope to see in the latter stages here.
As would be expected in a competition with the prestige of the National Bank Open, there are a lot of the world’s top 20 players in action in Montreal. As well as the top players, there are also a couple of familiar faces who are back in Montreal trying to relive old glories.
A million miles away from the player she was in the past but even at the age of 43, Williams is still a huge draw for any event. This is a tournament that she has never won in 11 previous attempts and she is very unlikely to make it the 12th time lucky in 2023.
She was knocked out in the first round last year so those who want to see Williams in action might need to look at getting first-round tickets just in case. Even if that is as far as she goes, no one can take away the remarkable career that the seven-time Grand Slam winner has enjoyed.
Bencic was the winner of the National Bank Open in 2015 and is currently ranked the 15th-best player in the world on the WTA tour. As much as the win in this event will have meant to her, it is safe to say that the gold medal that she won at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics far outstrips any of the other accomplishments in her career so far.
2023 has been a productive year on the WTA tour with a couple of events already in the bag. She will be one of the favourites to claim the 2023 crown despite only being the number 14 seed in the draw.
It does not seem so long ago that Wozniacki was the best player in the world. Despite that, she was only ever able to claim a single Grand Slam event, the 2018 Australian Open. It goes to show just how difficult the big events are to win. 30 career titles and 7th on the all-time money winners list, yet just that single Grand Slam.
The National Bank Open will mark Wozniacki’s return to the WTA Tour, an event she won back in 2010. That’s a great honour for the Montreal tournament and she will no doubt prove hugely popular as a draw for the crowd.
There are a number of homegrown talents in the National Bank Open in 2021 on both the ATP and WTA sides. They look to have a tough task ahead of them on paper but the level of support they will get from the crowds could see them produce a shock or two along the way.
It shows the depth of the field at the 2023 National Bank Open that Auger-Aliassime is the number 11 seed given that he is ranked 12th in the world. It really is a deep field on the men’s side of the event. The quarter-final stage is as far as he has gone in previous attempts at this competition.
2021 and 2022 were years of huge growth for the Montreal-born player. In three consecutive Grand Slams, he made the quarter-final at Wimbledon 2021, the semis at the US Open that same year and then the Quarter-final at the 2022 Australian Open. Things have gone off the rails so far in 2023 so hopes are pinned on the home crowd giving him the boost he requires.
The 2019 US Open winner, the Mississauga-born player made it up to number 4 in the rankings after that Grand Slam success. That is by far the most prestigious win of her career but there are few that will have given her the same satisfaction as when winning the National Bank Open in that same year.
She has dropped down to 44th in the rankings now, making the third round of both the French Open and Wimbledon earlier in the year. That might not sound like much but it was the best run that she has had at either tournament so it could be the confidence boost she needs now heading back onto home soil.
A name that tennis fans will be familiar with, he was runner-up in this tournament back in 2013. The former world number 3 missed almost two years of action before returning to the ATP tour just a couple of months back.
Despite that absence, he has shown that some of that old ability is still there, though clearly nothing like the level that he was playing at back in 2016. A finalist at Wimbledon and a semi-finalist at the Australian Open that year, it was the peak of his career.
There is little doubt that a tournament in front of his home fans is going to be a huge deal for him and while his current ranking of 546 is not indicative of the player he is, there is still a mountain to climb to be even close to where he was when last at this tournament in 2019.
As great as it would be to see a Canadian come out on top at the National Bank Open, hopes are fairly slim in both the ATP and WTA events. Bianca Andreescu would appear to hold the strongest claim to the title out of all of the Canadian players taking part but even then, it would take a bit of a leap of faith to suggest she has anything other than a minor chance.
On the men’s side of the competition, it is hard to look beyond the world number 1, Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard has a remarkable resume for a player who is just 20 years old. He is the new face of the ATP tour and looks capable of dominating it for a long time to come.
The women’s competition looks a lot tighter when it comes to trying to predict who will win. Iva Swiatek is the top seed and the world number 1. She has four Grand Slam titles to her credit, including the French Open earlier this year. Despite all her success, she has never made it beyond the round of 16 at the National Bank Open. That has to be a concern.
As such, it might be Belinda Bencic who can land this event for the second time in her career. She has enjoyed an excellent 2023 so far and although she is a long way down the seeded rankings, she can outperform that position in the draw.
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