Tennis: Aliassime’s Canada beat Australia to win their first Davis Cup

Canada will remember Alexis Galarneau (204), Steven Diez (346), Brayden Schnur (909) and Peter Polansky (1,496). They were the four Canadian players who answered captain Frank Dancevic‘s call for the 2022 Davis Cup playoffs on 4-5 March.

Canada, as expected, were defeated 4-0 in The Hague by the Netherlands. The home side fielded their best players: Botic van de Zandschulp, Tallon Griekspoor, Robin Haase and doubles players Wesley Koolhof, world number one, and Matwe Middelkoop.

After 267 days, the Americans lifted the silver medal at the Martin Carpena in Malaga on Sunday. How is this possible? Because the Canadians received an invitation on 17 March to replace Russia, who had been expelled because of the war in Ukraine.

First Denis Shapovalov against Thanasi Kokkinakis (6-2, 6-4), and then Felix Auger-Aliassime against Alex de Minaur (6-3, 6-4), confirmed Canada as the new world champion over Australia.

The Canadians thus become the 16th country to win the title and the first non-European since Argentina won on Croatian soil in the 2016 edition.

The newly crowned champions also match the Russians’ domination of last season. Like them, they started the year with the ATP Cup title and ended it by winning the Davis Cup.

After Shapovalov’s comfortable victory over Kokkinakis, the only question mark was the physical condition of Aliassime, who was forced to play the singles and doubles yesterday.

Being the best player present in Malaga was the number seven in the ATP ranking, and he returns home with the cup and undefeated. He has won all four of his matches, three of them in singles.

De Minaur came out with all the desire in the world. He had two break balls in the opening game and had a third at 1-1. He did not convert it.

Aliassime broke his opponent’s serve in the eighth game and confirmed the break to take the lead. He scored a second break in the third game of the continuation and did not give up the lead until the end despite his opponent trying.

Alex enjoyed a 0-40 to level at three games. Then came three missiles from the other side of the net. Spain won in 2019 with an untouchable Rafael Nadal, but was taken over by the Russia of Daniil Medvedev and the tournament has this time raised the best version of Felix