On the heels of the final Grand Slam event of the season, many of world’s top players, including five Canadians, have descended upon Quebec City this week to compete in the Bell Challenge presented by National Bank, a $220,000 Sony Ericsson WTA Tour International Series event.

Leading the way for Canada is World No. 35 Aleksandra Wozniak (Blainville, QC) who will be the tournament’s third seed. The 22-year old will take on Italian Corrina Dentoni in opening round action on Tuesday evening. Last year, Wozniak reached the semifinals in front of her home crowd. Fresh off her maiden Grand Slam main draw victory, Stéphanie Dubois (Laval, QC) will also begin her campaign against a tough customer in fourth-seeded Czech Lucie Safarova, ranked No. 50 in the world. Valérie Tétreault (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC) and Rebecca Marino (Vancouver, BC) will highlight Monday’s opening night festivities when they go up against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic and American Lauren Albanese respectively. Heidi El Tabakh (Oakville, ON) rounds out the Canadian contingent in this year’s draw and will face France’s Severine Bremond Beltrame in her first round encounter. Defending champion and World No. 12 Nadia Petrova of Russia heads another strong field for the second biggest women’s tournament in Canada.

Visit www.challengebell.com for all of the latest results from PEPS on the campus of Laval University. 

In addition, Aleksandra Wozniak will be writing a blog from Quebec City this week for the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour web site, click here to read it.

Fichman reaches clay court final in Italy

While the rest of her compatriots have moved indoors for the Bell Challenge, Sharon Fichman (Toronto, ON) has traveled to Italy to play a selection of clay court Challengers. Her first stop last week was the $100,000 Biella Challenger where she played for the singles title where she came up just short against Croatian Petra Martic, falling 7-5, 6-4 in Sunday’s singles final. En route to the championship, the 18-year old defeated two players ranked inside the Top 100 and her performance has allowed her to reach a career-high ranking of no. 136. In fact, after a strong Canadian showing at the U.S. Open, there are now 4 Canadian women ranked inside the Top 150 on the world rankings and two in the Top 100 with Dubois sitting at the century mark this week.