MONTREAL: The Rogers Cup men's tennis tournament in Montreal set a world record for attendance at a one-week tournament.
Tennis Canada said Sunday that 216,097 fans were on site throughout the tournament, which featured two of the current top three players in the world in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, projected future World No. 1 Alexander Zverev and rising Canadian star Denis Shapovalov.
"There was a tennis craze in our city in the last few weeks and it shows in our attendance numbers," stated Eugene Lapierre, tournament director for the Montreal event. "There were compelling story lines throughout the tournament and the Montreal crowd once again demonstrated their love of tennis"
"It has been a while since we experienced such excitement for our sport."
The previous attendance record for a one-week tournament was also set in Montreal in 2011, with a total of 213,760.
The 18-year-old Shapovalov beat World No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the third round earlier in the week and lost to fourth seed and World No. 8 Alexander Zverev in the semifinals on Saturday night.
Zverev tore up the "ordained" script by beating fan favourite and tennis' all time great Federer in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 in the final on Sunday.
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