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There had been a few hints that former top Canadian Françoise Abanda was working towards a comeback.

A few training videos. Some tournaments entered – and then withdrawn from. Or, because of a lack of a ranking, Abanda simply didn’t make the cut.

Last week, she was in the qualifying draw at a $15,000 ITF tournament on clay in Antalya, Turkey. But that first-round match was “not played”.

But on Sunday, Abanda did play – in the qualifying at a hard-court $15,000 ITF in Monastir, Tunisia.

And she won – 6-3, 6-3 against Natalie Moskova – a 16-year-old unranked player in her third career pro event after playing to similar tournaments last October. Moskova is at No. 750 in the ITF junior rankings; she plays mostly lower-level junior events.

It was a stark reminder that time stands still for no one. Abanda is now … 28 years old, and has barely played in the last five years.

At Moskova’s age, she was the No. 4 junior in the world and a semifinalist at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the juniors girls’ singles. By the time she was 17, Abanda was inside the top 200 in the WTA Tour rankings.

Her career-high ranking of No. 111 at the pro level came after the 2017 US Open, when she was 20.

Totally off the radar

What happened? It was always complicated, not helped by a chronic shoulder issue that hampered her for large periods of her tennis career.

(We’ve reached out to Abanda for an interview; she was always tough to pin down even back in the day. So we’ll keep you posted on our progress).

But she has played so little tennis in recent years, it’s definitely a huge surprise to see her back to the grind.

Before Sunday, Abanda’s last match dated back more than two years – to a first-round qualifying match at a $25K ITF in Orlando, Florida in 2023. She lost the first set 6-0 – then retired. It was her third ITF in a row after having been off the grid since … May 2022.

That Orlando tournament was her sixth in 2023. And her last – until this week.

A lot of time away with injury

Abanda played six events from Aug. to Oct. 2021. And she played two in Jan-Feb. 2021 – her first since tennis stopped for the pandemic from March – August 2020.

Before that, she didn’t play between March and July 2019.

But back in 2017 and 2018, Abanda was making noises at the top level. She played Grand Slam qualifying events and made main draws. She had great moments both in tournaments at home and playing Fed Cup.

Here’s a treasure trove of video from those years.

Here’s Abanda playing the qualifying at Indian Wells back in 2017.

That May, she won three matches to qualify at Roland Garros, and beat Tessah Andrianjafitrimo to get to the second round, where she was bakery-producted by Caroline Wozniacki. Still, a big result.

A few weeks later, she qualified for her first Wimbledon main draw.

And here she is after winning her first-round match at the All-England Club against Japan’s Kurumi Nara.

After that, she faced Jelena Ostapenko, who is four months younger but who had just pulled off a shocker in winning Roland Garros. To this day, it’s in the memory banks as an absolute tussle.

Abanda, despite being older, had a lot less pro experience. And had she had a little more, she might well have pulled it off. As it was, she lost a squeaker.

By the summer, the Montrealer was straight into the Citi Open in D.C. on her own ranking.

Young Canadians in D.C.

There, she found 17-year-old Bianca Andreescu, who had literally just turned pro and was playing her first event with that status.

In Cincinnati, Abanda qualified and upset Magda Linette in the first round. She lost to Julia Georges (who had also beaten her in D.C.).

And then, it was off to the qualifying at the US Open.

She made it to the final round before losing to Victoria Kuzmova (now Hruncakova).

She was disappointed. But the positive was that she was close to breaking into the top 100.

2018: another try in New York

There were a lot of young ‘uns in New York – Félix Auger-Aliassime, Denis Shapovalov, Andreescu – all 2-3 years her junior.

She was positive going in.

It was a pretty loaded qualififying draw. Among the low seeds and unseededs were: Jil Teichmann, Marie Bouzkova, Marta Kostyuk, Anna Kalinskaya, Renata Zarazua, Anastasia Potapova, Karolina Muchova, Jasmine Paolini (who lost to Muchova in the second round), Beatriz Haddad Maia, Olga Danilovic, Andreescu, Rebecca Sramkova, Anhelina Kalinina, Elena Rybakina, Paua Badosa, Sabine Lisicki, Coco Gauff, Barbora Krejcikova, Vera Zvonareva, Jaqueline Cristian, Martina Trevisan, Magdalena Frech, Jessica Pegula, Patty Schnyder, Veronika Kudermetova, Caty McNally and … Genie Bouchard.

Abanda defeated Jessika Ponchet and Haddad Maia before running into Karolina Muchova, who was just outside the top 200.

Muchova won and qualified for the main draw.

Abanda v Jabeur in Toronto

After a summer during which she lost twice to a 16-year-old kid named … Leylah Fernandez, Abanda went to Toronto for what no one could have imagined was her last Canadian Open.

At least until now.

She faced Tunisian Ons Jabeur in the first round of qualifying.

Jabeur, already 24, was hovering in the 50-70 range in the ranking and that week, was ranked No. 60.

Despite a bout with her … sensitive stomach and a purging in a neighbouring towel bin (yes, Open Court was on video detail), Jabeur won in straight sets.

Six months later, Abanda was basically out of the game.

It’s absolutely crazy that all those career highlights came … seven and eight years ago.

She fell off the rankings list in mid-May, 2023.

One for the main draw on Tuesday

Abanda got a walkover in the second round in Monastir from No. 4 seed Noemi La Cagnina, a 20-year-old ranked No. 1371.

She can make the main draw on Tuesday if she beats No. 15 seed Francesca Dell’Edera, who is also 28 but has no WTA singles ranking, and has career earnings of $9,459.

Dell’Edera’s career high WTA ranking of No. 1,230 came in Aug. 2019 – the same week Abanda played Jabeur in Toronto.

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