Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Address: 1 Shoreham Drive
Date: Aug 2010
Website: www.rogerscup.com
The Canadian Open tennis tournament takes place every year in both Toronto and Montreal. It has been in place since 1881 and is currently referred to as the Rogers Cup. Each year the event rotates between the two cities. So on even numbered years the men will play in Toronto and the women play in Montreal. The next year the men head to Montreal and the women come to Toronto. We have been lucky enough to attend the event several times, but we still have never seen the women play.
Back in 2004 we saw Andy Roddick defeat Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer.
In 2010, after an evening of long rain delays, we saw Canada's Peter Polansky win against Jurgen Melzer. We also witnessed the doubles match featuring Canadians Vasek Pospisil and rising star Milos Raonic. They were playing against the number one and number two ranked players at the time. They successfully defeated Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic out on the court that night.
In 2014 we watched matches between Grigor Dimitrov and Kevin Anderson as well as Britain's Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tsonga won his match, but he was wearing a very bright shirt which we thought was a little too close to tennis ball colour to be allowed.
There were two mascots for the games: The Racquet and The Ball. They danced around a bit between the matches and then temporarily obstructed the view for some fans during the match.
The Rogers Cup event also includes stations with food, contests and giveaways. There was also plenty of opportunity to show off your tennis skills.
Aside from the main stadium there are tennis courts with smaller viewing areas where players can practice and other qualifying matches are held. The Rogers Cup is always a fun event where we were lucky enough to see some world class tennis.
This year Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto had a tennis court set up to promote the tournament where the public could come and play. There were also some events set up and entertainment like The Fire Guy and his flaming tennis racquet below.
Speaking of smoking serves, Milos Raonic has one of the fastest in tennis today. At a previous Rogers Cup he hit a serve which was clocked at about 249 kilometres per hour. We were lucky enough to see that serve in action back in 2010. This year we are hoping that Milos Raonic will play his way to becoming a men's singles champion.
Map of Our World
Rogers Cup (Toronto)
Nathan Phillips SquarePost # 124