Day One in Canada

Day One in Toronto and Montreal didn't produce too many surprises although Nick Kyrgios did finish a match, in fact in the way expected of the Australian when fully fit.

He thrashed Viktor Troicki 6-1 6-2 

The 16th seed showed off his serve to the Montreal crowd, winning 88% of points on his first serve and 67% on his second delivery.

He faced no break points, yet created 10 on the Serb's fragile serve.  Only four were converted but they were all that were necessary.

One hopes that the Kyrgios body can withstand the rigours of more than one round of this Masters event.

Unseeded Juan Martin del Potro provided an upset of sorts, removing fourteenth seed John Isner 7-5 7-5.  The second set was more dominant for the Argentine as he held six break points on the American's big serve while not having to save one of his own.

One of the six was turned into a service break and the match was South American.

The other seed to fall on Day One was Lucas Pouille (13), victim to American Jared Donaldson in two gripping tie breaks.

Toronto opened with some great matches, including what seemed after set one a Venus Williams cake walk.

Irena-Camelia Begu was completely eclipsed by a consistent serve and pin point ground strokes from the recent Wimbledon finalist, Venus showing no signs of lack of matches, this being her first since that final.

Begu, down a break immediately in set two, then pounced on a period of surprising Williams error making.

Four successive games had the Romanian on the cusp of levelling the match, which she did, with a slight struggle, holding serve for 6-3.

An early break of serve from Venus in the decider was quickly replied with one from Irena-Camelia and then chances went begging until 3-4 where Venus pounced.

The veteran had the edge when it mattered and won a high calibre encounter 6-1 3-6 6-3.

Qualifier Varvara Lepchenko provided the biggest upset on Day One after giving Roland Garros champ Jelena Ostapenko (12) a 1-6 start.  Two tie break wins later Ostapenko was gone.

Kristina Mladenovic (13) was the other seed to fall, Barbora Strycova in excellent form and too good for the French player 6-2 6-3.

Mladenovic has failed to progress beyond the first round in every attempt at this tournament, which alternates between Toronto and Montreal.

A fascinating match was that between Petra Kvitova (14) and Carla Suarez Navarro.

Kvitova swept through set one 6-1, winning 31 points to 18.  Then the Spaniard turned up to play.

With a break of serve and a 4-1 lead it appeared Carla had placed herself in a position to make a third set possible, but Petra denied that by breaking back and winning a tie break.

The quality of set two makes one wish Carla had arrived at the court a little earlier and set one could have been similar.

Day Two has some interesting matches but for me the best on paper has to be Aga Radwanska (10) v Coco Vandeweghe.  Coco was a finalist last week in Stanford and quarter finalist at Wimbledon before that so Aga will need to be at her best.