Canada has one major event, The Rogers Cup.  It’s not even named after the country as the US Open is.  The one benefit of having a national tournament is the right to pick wildcards, which lets a country as star-deprived as Canada give a few Canadians a chance to play in its biggest tournament.

Even Canada’s best player in recent memory, Greg Rusedski, skedaddled across the pond to play for UK to complement Tim Henman.  These days, Frank Dancevic is the highest ranked Canadian male, and even he needed a wildcard to get into the Rogers Cup.

Despite lowly rankings, a trio of Canadians put a scare among the seeds.  Milos Raonic, who actually qualified, had the best shot.  Trying to take down hard hitting Chilean, Fernando Gonzalez, who was a semifinalist last week in Washington DC, Raonic not only took the first set, but pushed Gonzalez to a second set tiebreak.  Gonzalez would win that tiebreak 8 points to 6, and then break Raonic to take the third set, 6-4.

Frederic Niemeyer pushed Roger Federer to two tight sets, 7-6(3), 6-4.  Niemeyer announced he would retire this year.  Having played college tennis in the US, he has had 11 years on the tour.

Finally, Peter Polansky also played Novak Djokovic tough, winning 6-4, 7-6(6).

While it would be a major upset for a Canadian to beat a top seeded player, the trio of Raonic, Niemeyer, and Polansky acquitted themselves well.  Not everyone on the tour stands on the podium on a Sunday holding up trophies.  Many consider it a good tournament if they win one round, or stay on the year a decade playing the game that they love.  We’ll hear little of these players, most likely, but they’ll toil on tour, and perhaps more than some of us might be a little jealous of even the smallest of professional players.