Flashback: Rogers Cup interviews 2008-2012

The finals at the 2020 Rogers Cup were supposed to happen Sunday – in a perfect, non-pandemic world.

But it is not to be this year.

So we dug back into the archives to pull out some seriously retro interviews with some players who are still active today, and others who have called it a day.

(Apologies for some of the video quality: these were the very early days of Open Court’s video adventure, and we’ve come a long way since then. As well, they were stored on an old Vimeo account, and not in HD. Still, fun to see how young they were).

2008: Ivanovic and her thumb injury

She managed to finish the match, but Ana Ivanovic was pretty upset as a thumb injury not only hurt her chances in Montreal, but also cost her the opportunity to play the Olympics in Beijing.

2009: Teen Raonic qualifies for the main draw

Milos Raonic, then just 18 and in his first visit to Montreal, beat Teymuraz Gabashvili in the first round of qualifying and an ailing Michael Llodra in the second, to reach the Rogers Cup main draw for the first time. He gave world No. 10 Fernando Gonzalez all he could handle in the first round of the main draw before going down in three.

2010: WTA All-Access Hour

Look at the beloved players in this one: Elena Dementieva, Li Na, Francesca Schiavone, Caroline Wozniacki and Jelena Jankovic.

2010: Roger Federer in Toronto

In Toronto, Roger Federer talks about new coach Paul Annacone, as well as the “star dubs” pairing of his great rivals Nadal and Djokovic.

2011: Nadal and Djokovic christen the new Har-Tru courts

2011: Roger Federer talks about turning 3-0

Interesting interview in French (with subtitles) as Roger Federer talks about turning 30. And, in a time warp, he also talks about being on the Player Council with Rafael Nadal, and the search for a new ATP CEO.

2011: Federer talks about beating home-country kid

Roger Federer is intimately familiar with playing the home-country player on his home turf. He usually manages to get it done without anyone feeling too much pain.

2011: Vasek Pospisil talks about playing the Fed

Vasek Pospisil, just turned 21, got to play Roger Federer on the stadium court of his home-country tournament in Montreal.

2011: Mardy Fish makes the final

Mardy Fish was playing the best tennis of his career in 2011, and reached the Masters 1000 final in Montreal. But he ran into Novak Djokovic.

2011: Djokovic wins the Rogers Cup

Just turned 24, Novak Djokovic wins the Rogers cup after beating Davydenko, Cilic, Monfils and Tsonga along the way to the final against Mardy Fish.

2012: Ivanovic suffers a double bagel

There surely were moments in Montreal when Ana Ivanovic talked of happier things, and Open Court videoed it. But this one was another tough one as she had just suffered a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Roberta Vinci of Italy.