The Bell Challenge is a WTA Tour Tier III tennis tournament held in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada since 1993. The tournament is played on indoor hardcourts.
In 1997, Dutchwoman Brenda Schultz-McCarthy defeated Belgian Dominique Van Roost 6-4, 6-7(4), 7-5, and the following year, American Tara Snyder won her first WTA Tour title with a hard fought 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(6) victory over fellow American and former top 10 player Chanda Rubin. Snyder saved two match points during the match. In 2006, top-seed and 2007 Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli of France defeated Russian Olga Poutchkova 6-0, 6-0, the first double bagel in a WTA Tour final for 13 years.
Players who have won the event and gone on to win Grand Slam titles include 1999 champion Jennifer Capriati and 2003 champion Maria Sharapova, who both went on to become World No. 1.
American Lindsay Davenport, a three-time Grand Slam champion, won the event in 2007, in only her third event after returning to the tour after giving birth to her son.
Famous quotes containing the words bell and/or challenge:
“Its quick silver bell beating, beating
And down the dark one ruby flare
Pulsing out red light like an artery,”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)