We have lift off.
That potentially golden era in Canadian men’s tennis, the one we’ve been telling you about for oh, about, three years?
It’s here.
Turn on your television today or secure tickets for the Rogers Cup up at York University, and you’ll see it on display. You’ll be able to say you were there when it started, when two generations of Canadian tennis merged to form a powerful force in the sport for a country that has big ambitions in the game.
Now, this is sports, so there are no guarantees. Projections don’t always pan out. First-round draft picks don’t always work out. Just ask the Cleveland Browns.
But, with apologies to Grant Connell, Glenn Michibata and their peers, Tennis Canada will today trot out its best and brightest generation ever on to centre court at the Rogers Cup. It will be the first time 17-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime will be on the same stage as 19-year-old Denis Shapovalov and 27-year-old former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic.
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This is Canadian tennis history in the making. With no Roger Federer, and no Andy Murray for that matter, the spotlight couldn’t be any greater on this story.
Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime will play doubles on centre court this afternoon, and they won’t be playing any tomato cans. It’ll be Novak Djokovic and Kevin Anderson, the two men who battled it out for the Wimbledon crown last month, on the other side of the net.
Shapovalov is already a top-30 player, and there are many who believe his younger buddy, Auger-Aliassime, will be just as good. Maybe better. While Raonic surprised many with his rapid ascent up the ATP ladder to a high of No. 3 in the world, Tennis Canada has been uber-excited about Shapovalov and Aliassime for some time.
These are the stars we’ve been waiting for. If you were a Blue Jays fan, you’d compare them to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette. A Winnipeg Jets supporter might see similiarities with Patrik Laine and Nik Ehlers. Or Kyle Connor.
You get the idea.
So Denis and Felix will play doubles, and then both will play singles later in the week. Shapovalov is looking to re-create the storm of inspiration he generated last summer at this very same tournament when he knocked off Rafael Nadal. Auger-Aliassime is looking for that first big win, that Daniel-Nestor-beats-Stefan-Edberg moment to announce his arrival to the larger tennis world as a force to be reckoned with.
Maybe he’ll get it this week. His first match will be against 24-year-old Frenchman Lucas Pouille, a solid top-25 player and once ranked as high as No. 10 in the world.
So that’s the two teenagers. Then there’s Raonic, set to take on speedy David Goffin, a tough out, tonight on centre court. Raonic has been injured so much in recent years it’s almost a surprise these days when he plays. When he does, he’s still a force, as he demonstrated at Wimbledon with a quarterfinal appearance last month.
He is the best player Canada has ever produced, and an inspiration to young lads like Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime. The serve is still one of the great weapons in the game.
While his ranking has tumbled, suggestions of Raonic’s demise have been exaggerated. There’s still lots in the tank if he can get past the injury frustrations of the past two years, in particular. Remember, all four Wimbledon semifinalists this year were 30 years of age or older. Raonic is 27, and while that might have been regarded as “old” in this sport not so very long ago, it isn’t anymore.
If Raonic starts delivering consistent results again, and if Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime even reach 75 per cent of their potential, this will be the best generation of male players the nation has ever produced. Layer on top of that 28-year-old Vasek Pospisil, once a top-30 singles player and still an elite doubles players who has anchored Canada’s Davis Cup team in recent years, and that’s a pretty impressive foursome for Canada.
Pospisil, still capable of going toe-to-toe at times with the best in the world, will play Borna Coric tonight after the Raonic-Goffin matchup.
In an ideal world for Tennis Canada, we’ll still be talking about these four players by Thursday and Friday. Tennis being tennis, of course, it could all vanish quickly this week.
But this group of Canadian men isn’t going to vanish after this week. We’re going to be able to track them over the next few years, and it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility Canada could soon have three players in the top 50, and maybe the top 30. Or top 20.
When you see the paucity of top-ranked players on the Canadian women’s side, none in the top 100, this is the good news element for Tennis Canada right now. None of our women could get direct entry into the Rogers Cup draw in Montreal, and that’s a big concern right now, even with optimism surrounding Bianca Andreescu, Leylah Fernandez and the feel good comeback campaign of Rebecca Marino.
But for the men, right now the sky’s the limit. It’s time to dream big dreams. The generation led by Raonic and Pospisil has been joined by the new generation led by Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime.
Today, it’s time to see all those big dreams in action.
Which of these Canadians is most likely to snap ‘s 60-year drought at the @rogerscup?
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