Montreal: A Strong Italian Presence Even Without Jannik Sinner—Flavio Cobolli Leads a Large Italian Contingent

Despite the controversial absence of Jannik Sinner—who, despite the tournament organizers’ objections, went his own way, choosing to rest ahead of the U.S. Open (and, incidentally, forgoing the chance to sweep all the Masters 1000 titles this season)— Italy will be very well represented at the Montreal tournament, whose main draw will begin to take shape this Sunday with the first-round matches.

The Italian contingent is large, with seven players from Italy set to compete: In the first round, Lorenzo Sonego will face Dutch player Tallon Griekspoor; Mattia Bellucci will take on Argentine Sebastian Baez; and Matteo Berrettini will face another Argentine, Mariano Navone.

Matteo Arnaldi (No. 30 seed), meanwhile, will start in the second round, facing either Shintaro Mochizuki (who played against Sinner at Wimbledon) or Fabian Maroszan, Lorenzo Musetti (No. 11 seed), who will face the winner of the match between Nicolas Mejia and Martin Landaluce, Flavio Cobolli (No. 6 seed and the highest-ranked Italian player among those competing), who will face either Benjamin Bonzi or Yannick Hanfmann; and finally, Luciano Darderi (No. 19), whose opponent will emerge from the match between Gabriel Diallo and Kyrian Jacquet.

The Canadian Open has had only one Italian champion: Jannik Sinner, who in 2023 (in Toronto, the venue for the men’s tournament in odd-numbered years) defeated Australia’s Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-1. The current titleholder is American Ben Shelton, who won the 2025 final 6(5)-7, 6-4, 7-6(3) against Russian Karen Khachanov.