Daniel Nestor (Toronto, ON) and his Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic will be seeking their eighth tournament win of the season this week at the Davidoff Swiss Indoors, an ATP World Tour 500 event currently underway in Basel, Switzerland.

The top-seeded pair will begin their title bid against Argentina’s Lucas Arnold Ker and Chilean Fernando Gonzalez. Nestor and Zimonjic hope that the dawn of a new month will change their on-court fortunes after suffering three consecutive opening round losses in October at tournaments in Shanghai, Beijing and last week in Vienna, Austria. They were the team to beat during the first part of the year, winning seven titles including a successful title defence at Wimbledon.

Pelletier takes home Poitiers doubles crown
Marie-Ève Pelletier (Repentigny, QC) and her French partner Julie Coin took home top honours in doubles over the weekend at the $100,000 Poitiers Challenger in France. The second-seeded team defeated Marta Domachowska and Michaella Krajicek 6-3, 3-6, 10-3 in the final to earn their second title of 2009 and second in France. Coin and Pelletier were also crowned champions at the $100,000 Cagnes-sur-Mer Challenger in May. The pair plans to team up for the Grand Slams in 2010 where they will earn direct entry into the main draws. With Sunday’s win, Pelletier will improve on her career-best doubles ranking of No. 66.   

Dubois and Fichman set for action on the ITF Challenger Circuit      
After a disappointing first round loss last week in Poitiers, Stéphanie Dubois (Laval, QC) will be looking to re-discover her winning ways when she hits the courts this week at the $50,000 Nantes Challenger in France. Seeded sixth in the tournament, Dubois will take on local favourite Pauline Parmentier in her opening match. Meanwhile, Sharon Fichman (Toronto, ON) will make her return to the Pro Circuit this week after taking some well-deserved time off in October. She will be the third seed at the $25,000 Rock Hill Women’s Challenger in South Carolina.

Birmingham Nationals take centre stage in Niagara-on-the-Lake
The 2009 Birmingham National Wheelchair Tennis Championships are set to get underway on Thursday at the White Oaks Resort and Spa in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The event will feature Canada's top wheelchair tennis players competing for coveted national singles and doubles titles in the men’s and quad divisions. The men’s singles semifinals as well as the men’s and quad singles finals will be web cast live this weekend on www.tenniscanada.com. The semifinals will be played on Saturday beginning at 10:00 a.m. local time while the championship matches are scheduled to get underway Sunday also at 10:00 a.m.