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The Montreal Masters 1000 kicks off this Sunday, August 2, on the hard courts of IGA Stadium with a draw that no one had anticipated. Neither Jannik Sinner, nor Carlos Alcaraz, nor Novak Djokovic: the Big Three of world tennis have skipped the Canadian stop, leaving Alexander Zverev to shoulder the role of big favorite alone. A scenario that reshuffles all the cards and opens the door to the surprises that the Quebec tournament loves. The simultaneous withdrawal of the three sacred monsters turns this Masters 1000 into a full-scale laboratory for a generation pushing behind them.
A field orphaned of its three biggest stars
The withdrawal of the top trio gives the tournament a rare look for a Masters 1000.
The withdrawal of the top trio gives the tournament a rare look for a Masters 1000. Zverev, world number two and already crowned here in 2022, becomes the natural boss of a draw where Ben Shelton, defending champion, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Taylor Fritz represent the main dangers. The German knows the recipe on this fast surface that rewards first strikes and powerful serves. His lost final at Wimbledon last month against Sinner left marks, but also a certainty: his power tennis works on all courts.
The Quebec crowd, for its part, will have its eyes glued to Auger-Aliassime. The 26-year-old Montrealer returns to his favorite tournament after a mixed season where he hovers around the twentieth spot in the world rankings. The draw gave him no favors: from his entry on Tuesday, he could inherit an opponent of the caliber of Sebastian Korda or Arthur Fils. The benevolent pressure of the yellow wall at IGA Stadium will be his best asset, provided he survives the early rounds where he has stumbled too often this year. Taylor Fritz, meanwhile, arrives from Washington with a title in hand and confidence that could wreak havoc in the bottom half of the draw.
Ten Frenchmen, mixed fortunes
The French delegation is the largest in the field with ten players, a number that says as much about the density of French tennis as the lack of certainty about a possible successor to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the last Frenchman to win in Canada in 2014. Arthur Fils, exempt from the first round thanks to his seeded status, will carry the most legitimate hopes. The 21-year-old reassured about his hip after his withdrawal in the quarterfinals in Washington and arrives with the ambition to go beyond the third round, his current ceiling in Masters 1000 events. His power from the baseline and his aggressive returning could work wonders on the fast Montreal hard courts.
Behind him, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and his supersonic first serve could sow panic in a draw where big servers have historically shone. Ugo Humbert will look to find the rhythm that earned him a title in Dubai in March, before a clay and grass season that diluted his effectiveness. The surprise could come from qualifying: Benjamin Bonzi and Hugo Gaston both made the cut on Saturday by beating better-ranked opponents, and Arthur Fery, the Wimbledon revelation where he pushed Medvedev to a fifth set, received a wildcard that shows the tournament's confidence in the young guard.
The curse of first times
Montreal cultivates a statistic that fascinates the circuit: the last four tournament winners — Pablo Carreño Busta in 2022, Jannik Sinner in 2023, Alexei Popyrin in 2024, and Ben Shelton in 2025 — all clinched their very first Masters 1000 title there. No other tournament in the category can claim such a streak, making the Canadian event the ideal launching pad for a contender seeking legitimacy. The list of top-30 players still without a Masters 1000 title is long, and several of them are in the draw.
With a total prize pool of $9.4 million and a 96-player format where seeds only enter from Tuesday, the window is wide open for a new name to etch itself into the record books. The question remains who, among Fritz, Shelton, Auger-Aliassime, or a surprise guest from qualifying, will force fate to perpetuate this strange Montreal tradition.