Andreescu Canada’s next great tennis hope
We almost got to find out the answer to a theoretical sports question. If a professional Canadian tennis player makes history and no one sees it, did it actually happen? Under more ideal circumstances, many thousands of Canadians would have witnessed Bianca Andreescu’s spectacular weekend triumph at the annual tennis gathering in Indianaa Wells, Calif., the most prestigious sin-gles tournament ever won by a Canadi-an player of either gender. There was, however, no traditional Canadian television coverage of An-dreescu’s stunning upset over three-time grand-slam winner Angelique Kerber of Germany, a triumph that won Andreescu $1.34 million (U.S.) in prize money. None of CBC, Sportsnet or TSN, you see, currently own the rights to televise WTA tour events in Canada. They’re even televising snoozy Senate debates in Canada now for the firsttime. But no Canadian networks are keen at the moment to pony up for women’s tennis. There was, however, one way to see the Andreescu-Kerber match. The rights to broadcast WTA events in Canada are currently owned by DAZN, a relatively new subscription livestreaming service operated out of the United Kingdom. Seeing an opportunity on Saturday to familiarize more Canadians with its service, DAZN made the broadcast of the Andreescu-Kerber match available for free on its Twitter feed. Andreescu announced the Twitter broadcast on her own account, hoping to get the message out, something Serena Wil-liams or Maria Sharapova has probably never had to do. As it was, Andreescu still became a household name in Canada, with Cana-dian media outlets scrambling to tell the country who this gutsy 18-year-old
was and how she had managed to pull off this feat that absolutely nobody saw coming even two weeks ago.
Messages of congratulations poured in from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Denis Shapovalov, Billie Jean King and Rod Laver.
There was even a tweet from legendary Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, noteworthy to Andreescu as her parents are from Romania.
To those paying attention in the first 21⁄ 2 months of the 2019 tennis season, the Mississauga native was already an intriguing story.
Now, she’s the hottest player in all of tennis, holding a 28-3 record this season to leap to No. 24 in the world from No. 152.
Against Kerber, one of the fittest and toughest competitors in women’s tennis, Andreescu raced to a one-set lead, lost the second set and fell behind in the third set while suffering from cramps, a sore arm and other heat- and stressrelated problems.
She had three match points while serving and couldn’t convert any of them and it seemed almost certain her German opponent would win the day.
Except Andreescu then dug deep and broke Kerber to win the match.
“A star is born, congratulations @Bandreescu_ what a fighter you are” tweeted an admiring Laver.
It was only last April that Andreescu was stricken with leg cramps during a Fed Cup match in Montreal and had to be taken off the court in a wheelchair. You could see the explosive talent. But she didn’t look like a mature athlete poised to take on the world.
Good results in lower-tier events in the latter part of 2018 helped grow her confidence and wins over Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki earlier this year got people talking. Now Andreescu is the talk of the tour.
Naturally, the question in Canada now becomes: Can Andreescu soar to greater heights than Eugenie Bouchard?
Bouchard went as high as No. 5 in 2014, the year she went to the semifinals of both the Australian Open and French Open, and to the final at Wimbledon. Now 25, she has fallen from that perch to the point she had to try to qualify for the main draw this week at the Miami Open and was eliminated by a much lower-ranked opponent.
Well, it’s early, and Bouchard’s 2014 results were undeniably spectacular and not easily matched. Andreescu’s history with injuries and even the physical problems she had to overcome over the past two weeks are also enough to give you pause.
But as far as Andreescu’s game, it’s no contest. She’s got a bigger and more comprehensive arsenal than Bouchard ever had, or has.
Andreescu is just as aggressive as Bouchard was in her best days, but more mobile, resourceful and creative.
She’ll slice the backhand, get to the net and work in drop shots.
Her serve is better and more consistent than Bouchard’s.
She’ll retreat from the baseline and hit a high defensive ball, then immediately switch back to attack mode. That all those elements have come together so quickly in the first three months of the year makes Andreescu arguably the most compelling Canadian athlete of 2019 so far.
She is unseeded in Miami this week, but she won’t be unnoticed. Andreescu could meet Kerber again in the third round, but after the excitement and emotion of her breakthrough victory at Indian Wells, just getting through the first two rounds will be an enormous challenge.
A lot of interested Canadians will be watching. We know how to find her now.