Canada's struggling tennis stars look to tame clay surface at French Open

Victoria Mboko is the only Canadian player coming into the French Open with any kind of momentum.

And even then, the 19-year-old only rounded into form this week at a tuneup tournament in Strasbourg, where she plays the final on Saturday.

For the rest — three in the men's singles along with Leylah Fernandez on the women's side — it's a mixed bag of injuries, bad luck and the natural ebbs and flows of a long, gruelling season.

And the surface: the red clay has been both kind and cruel to the Canadians in the past.

Mostly cruel.

But it's a marathon, not a sprint. And all are looking at the positives heading into the tournament, which begins on Sunday.

For Mboko, the spring clay-court season began late because she had her wisdom teeth extracted. She then had to withdraw from Rome because of illness.

For Gabriel Diallo, it's been his back.

"The entire clay-court season I've had back problems that I tried to play through with medication," Diallo said. "But in Munich it was starting to get serious, and I had an injection. In Madrid I tried to push but it wasn't ready, and so I skipped Rome."

Diallo had planned to play a tournament in Geneva this week. But as he attempted to close a glass jar, it shattered; he ended up with shards in his left arm, requiring surgery. That cost him two weeks; he still had four stitches on a finger that were due to come out on Friday.

Felix Auger-Aliassime, who will be the No. 4 seed in the tournament, first meets Daniel Altmaier, a hard-hitting German who beat him on clay last year in Monte Carlo.

Auger-Aliassime hasn't won back-to-back completed matches since Indian Wells in early March.

"I obviously have to continue to ask questions to figure how I can avoid these early exits in