Last Canadian to win at home is rooting for Bianca Andreescu

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The last Canadian woman to win on home soil is hoping for a changing of the guard.

“I think she deserves it,” 74-year-old Faye Urban Mlacak told The Toronto Sun on Sunday morning, ahead of Bianca Andreescu’s showdown with Serena Williams in the final of the Rogers Cup at the Aviva Centre.

Urban Mlacak, a native of Windsor, Ont., who now lives in Toronto with her husband, Willy, captured the Canadian Open in 1969, defeating doubles partner Vicki Berner of Vancouver in an all-Canadian final when the tournament was played on clay courts.

No Canadian had gone that deep until Andreescu, a 19-year-old Thornhill resident from Mississauga, stormed through her hometown tournament this week in her return to the WTA Tour, coming back from a shoulder injury.

Urban Mlacak said she appreciated winning her home-country tournament five decades ago, but she was Canada’s top-ranked player at the time and she went in expecting to win the event.

“It was more of the same. To win your home tournament is always big, but I don’t think it meant as much then,” said Urban Mlacak, who was inducted into the Canadian Tennis Hall of Fame in 1996.

Urban Mlacak also said it wasn’t nearly as significant a moment for her then as it is now.

“The tournament didn’t have the same impact as it does today. It didn’t have the impact,” she said.

As for Andreescu erasing the drought?

“I think it’s time,” said Urban Mlacak, Canada’s top-ranked player from 1967-1969 who was the first Canadian to be seeded at the U.S. Open. “Fifty years is a long time. It’s a testament to Tennis Canada that they’re developing talent. It’s never a quick fix to develop players. It can take 50 years.

“I would bet on Bianca. She will rise to the occasion,” Urban Mlacak said, adding, “I think she can appreciate what it means.”

Andreescu and Urban Mlacak have never met, but the youngster hoped to make the connection.

“I would love to meet her,” Andreescu said. “She said that she had a feeling that I would win this tournament and that I’m a true champion in her eyes, which means so much to me coming from her. So I would definitely love to meet her.”

Urban also won four Canadian doubles titles, three with Berner and another with Brenda Nunns.

Urban Mlacak and Berner were the first to Canadians to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1967. Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard has since surpassed that accomplishment, reaching the final at the All-England Club in 2014.

Urban Mlacak wasn’t in attendance at the Aviva Centre, but said she would watch the final from the comfort of her home.

Urban Mlacak and Berner were the first Canadians to reach the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 1967. Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard has since surpassed that accomplishment, reaching the final at the All-England Club in 2014.