Canadian women go camping

Starting Monday, an entire platoon of Canada’s best female tennis players will start a 10-day training camp in Florida, at the USTA’s training centre in Boca Raton.

Here’s who will be on hand:

Genie Bouchard
Aleksandra Wozniak
Françoise Abanda
Sharon Fichman
Stéphanie Dubois
Gabriela Dabrowski
Heidi el Tabakh
Carol Zhao

According to Tennis Canada, there are several WTA Tour players also training on site, so the ladies will be able to play practice matches with Cibulkova, Keys, Safarova and Hampton, among others.

Tennis Canada will also have an entire brigade of coaches on hand: Fed Cup captain Sylvain Bruneau, Nathalie Tauziat, Simon Larose (Abanda), Nick Saviano (Bouchard), Larry Jurovich (Fichman), and Bruno Echagaray (Dubois).

“It will be a good opportunity for the girls to have a strong preparation for the start of the season,” Bruneau said in a press release. “The camp will also help build team spirit as we begin our quest for a place in World Group I this year.

They’re calling it a “pre-season training camp” – and also a bonding opportunity as the Canadian Fed squad prepares to take on Serbia in Montreal in early February.

Bouchard has already been in Florida for quite awhile. Wozniak has been working out with her father in Laval at Tennis 13, where we’re proud to say we beat her to the courts most mornings 🙂

Zhao is currently in finals mode at Stanford; and Wozniak was out and about in Montreal Sunday night. So it appears all of them won’t be there the entire time.

Abanda and el Tabakh have been in Merida, Mexico playing in a $25K this week. Abanda made the singles quarter-finals; el Tabakh reached the semis, where she lost to Indy de Vroome of the Netherlands. So right from “season” to “pre-season” for them.

Zhao spent the fall acclimating to her freshman year at Stanford University, where she’s a member of the tennis team and, presumably, hitting the books hard.

(Photo from Tennis Canada)