“Home-court advantage” and more takeaways from Washington D.C., Montreal and Toronto

The two 1000-level tournaments currently taking place in Canada—ATP in Toronto, WTA in Montreal—are the hinge point of the North American hard court season. They are tune-ups and predictors for the last leg of the summer hunt, which culminates at the US Open. But this time around, they mostly invite questions, questions and more questions. Here are a few of them:

• Just how significant is “home-court advantage”?
• What are Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two dominant players on the ATP tour, up to?
• Can newly minted Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek prevail at the US Open again?
• What is up with those Wilson US Open balls anyway?

This summer, the vaunted “home court advantage” is more dubious than ever. That much was evident at the combined ATP/WTA 500 event in Washington, D.C.. This event is dear to almost all American players, with great history and tradition, especially for the African-American community. For Frances Tiafoe, who grew up and trained near the capital, it ranks right behind the Grand Slam events as a tournament he would most love to win.

“I feel locked in, man,” an enthusiastic Tiafoe said before the start in Washington. “I feel super motivated. It's not [even] really about how I'm playing. [I just want] to compete.”

Venus Williams, the 45-year old wild card embarking on a historic comeback effort in Washington, was also fired up. She told reporters, “I definitely have a love affair with D.C. It’s also a great opportunity to play in the U.S., which the American players aren't afforded as much.”

But the general patriotic fervor and surface preference of the American players did not pay great dividends. Top sed Taylor Fritz, Tiafoe and Ben Shelton all went down swinging—Tiafoe at the hands of Shelton—leaving Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and No. 7 seed Alex de Minaur to battle it out in a final won by the Aussie. Davidovich Fokina rallied from 2-5 down in the third set to stun Fritz, then ousted Shelton.

The American women experienced an even greater letdown as Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, the tournament's top two seeds, both lost their first matches. In the final, Canada’s Leylah Fernandez defeated Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya. Neither player was seeded.

The conventional wisdom about home games took an even greater hit in the ongoing events in Canada, where the dust hasn’t even settled yet. The Canadian men logged exactly three wins, none of them by either of the host nation’s seeded stars, Denis Shapovalov or Felix Auger-Aliassime. The honor fell upon two young wild card recipients and No. 27 seed Gabriel Diallo.

On the WTA side, Canadians have a dazzling potential star in 18-year old Victoria Mboko—who ousted top seed Coco Gauff, 6-1, 6-4. Other than that, the local women also logged just three wins. Former US Open champ Bianca Andreescu had one, former Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard (who is retiring from professional tennis) had another and the third was by veteran Rebecca Marino. Slim pickings for all three wild card recipients.

Clearly, this summer we are seeing something like a home court disadvantage. So US Open contenders may need to curb their enthusiasm, and focus on being realistic, because while great expectations generate great motivation, they also generate great pressure. Quality players go on high alert facing home-town heroes, much as Fritz did in Montreal. He played a really tight, ruthless match to snuff out the hopes of Diallo, the last Canadian man in the draw.

“I just feel like I let a lot of people down today,” Diallo said afterwards. “I didn't really have a chance out there. Didn't have a chance to get the crowd going. . . It's disappointing that we didn't have a guy perform a little bit deeper in the event.”

Things are likely to become a lot more challenging in the coming days, as Alcaraz and Sinner will leap back into the ATP mosh pit in Cincinnati. Sinner is the defending champion in Cincy and New York; Alcaraz has been a runner-up in Cincinnati (2023) and champion in New York (2022). Both men have been laying low since the recent renewal of their acquaintance at Wimbledon, but even in that position they cast an enormous shadow over the ATP field. Many analysts, including icons like Boris Becker and John McEnroe, have pronounced one or both men “unbeatable.”

That opinion is reasonable, and easily made in the wake of their Roland Garros epic. But the game is fast moving, and we’re approaching the end of the Grand Slam season. If one or both of these titans is to be taken down, these next few weeks may present the best opportunity. General fatigue, heat, fast surfaces, servbots and physically punishing hard courts could be more helpful to underdogs than favorites.

Among the women, Swiatek is the one most comparable to Sinner or Alcaraz at this juncture. Unlike the two ATP titans, the newly minted Wimbledon champion showed up for the first summer 1000 and reasserted that she can be as devastating on hard courts as on clay. She dropped just eight games in two matches in Montreal before a physical, hard-hitting Clara Tauson knocked her off.

Swiatek’s showing was impressive in light of the charge, leveled by a number of players, that the Wilson US Open balls in use during the North American segment of the season are too lively. After all, Switek’s excels on clay, where slower balls are also the norm.

“They feel weird,” Maria Sakkari said of the balls in Washington, issuing a lament that followed the tour to Canada. “They fly sometimes and sometimes they stay on your racquet. I have mixed emotions about the balls.”

Alexei Propyrin, the defending champ in Canada, echoed her misgivings, as did Ben Shelton, who said that the balls appeared “more lively and a little bit faster than I remember.”

Fritz doesn’t like them, either. But like others, he said he was happy that the same tennis balls are used at all the summer hard-court meetings.

After his win over Diallo, Fritz suggested that there were probably two reasons behind the high number of double faults some players have hit (we’re looking at you, Coco), and the abundance of “ugly” and unpredictable tennis: the “very fast” surfaces and the balls.

“These are for sure the hardest balls to control that we play with all year,” the top-ranked American said. “They're not bad, it's just the balls that we've been playing with on tour for the last couple years [have been] really soft and more dead. You play with these, they shoot off your racquet, they jump off the court faster.”

Canadians and Americans who had been longing for a return to hard courts after the trials of clay and grass need to proceed with their eyes wide open. The old saw applies: be careful what you wish for.