MONTREAL — Canadian tennis player Alexis Galarneau was ousted from the National Bank Open presented by Rogers men’s tennis tournament in a straight-sets loss to Czechia’s Vit Kopriva on Monday.
The 27-year-old Galarneau from Laval, Que., fell 6-4, 6-4 in a first-round match delayed three times because of rain, and finishing about five and a half hours after it started.
Galarneau was originally scheduled to open his tournament Sunday night on IGA Stadium’s Centre Court. Prolonged showers shelved the entire evening session.
Galarneau prepared to play that match at 11 a.m. local time on Monday, but it was pushed back another two hours because of rain.
Only one service game and seven total points were contested in the afternoon before raindrops fell again on Centre Court, and sent both players to the locker room for another two hours.
The break seemed to benefit Kopriva as the Czech broke Galarneau on his very first service game upon resumption of play to lead 2-1. Kopriva would earn another break during the seventh game to take a 5-2 lead.
While Galarneau would eventually get one of those breaks back, Kopriva held on to take the opening set.
The 70th-ranked Kopriva broke Galarneau’s serve in the third game of the second set before light showers once again halted play.
Action resumed shortly before 6 p.m. local time, with Kopriva taking four of the final seven games for the win.
Monday’s schedule, which initially featured 27 first-round singles to clear a backlogged schedule, was reduced to 17 due to repeated weather interruptions.
The tennis tournament was already scrambling after Sunday’s wet weather allowed the completion of just two of 14 scheduled first-round singles matches.
Monday night’s schedule was to include Canadian wild-card entry Gabriel Diallo of Montreal against French qualifier Kyrian Jacquet, as well as Frenchman Gael Monfils versus Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak.
Liam Draxl of Newmarket, Ont., was also scheduled to play his first-round match Monday against Spaniard Daniel Merida.