Asking Pospisil to defeat Tsonga was a bit of a stretch
By Mike McIntyre
It's time to bring an ATP World Tour main event to Vancouver!
Canada's Davis Cup tie against France got underway on Friday in a city that is known for feverishly supporting its hockey team. Apparently none of the 4,000 in attendance got the memo that the Canucks (Vancouver's NHL team) are out of town, as the Thunderbird Sports Centre certainly had the atmosphere of a hockey game.
Things got underway with Vasek Pospisil, ranked 115th in the world, against France's most formidable foe in Jo Wilfried Tsonga. This was clearly going to be the match of the series (or "tie" as they call it in tennis) that would be the most difficult for the Canadian team to be competitive in. Tsonga is 6th in the ATP rankings and was a finalist at the 2008 Australian Open, so to say that he's in a different class of tennis player than Pospisil is an understatement.
Sure Pospisil was Canada's hero stepping-up in September against Israel, but Dudi Sela and company are not in the same realm of player like Tsonga is. Few are for that matter.
Serving at 1-2 in the opening set, Pospisil would face his first break point at 30-40 and show his early game jitters. After Tsonga returned a second serve, Pospisil's backhand slice had too much spin to get itself over the net and the French contingent of about 100 fans suddenly became much more involved as their nation went up 3-1.
After the match, Pospisil would admit that he was a little tense at the start with Vancouver being his home-town. It showed as the twenty-one year old seemed anxious and was hitting many of his balls outside of the lines.
A net cord favourable to Tsonga during Pospisil's next service game put the more experienced Frenchman up 5-1. Tsonga would then hold at love to take the opening set 6-1. Good thing these matches are best of five, right?
The second set started with a hold for the young Canuck, but then there was a tense service game at 1-1 in which Pospisil had to save several break points to avoid going down another early deficit. He came through with some strong serving and really got the home crowd going to go up 2-1.
The atmosphere at a Davis Cup match is truly electric compared with your typical tennis match. Having that many partisan fans certainly helps but even at the Rogers Cup in Toronto and Montreal I've never witnessed something nearly as circus-like as the few thousand fans at the arena on this day. Having the Sardis Secondary school band playing in the stands along with a throng of rowdy Canadian fans really amped the atmosphere up a notch.
The momentum from the previous hold served to get Pospisil going and briefly it appeared as though the Canadian might be able to swing the set in his favour. He had his first break point on Tsonga's serve at 30-40. A thrilling rally ensued at 30-40 with both players ending up near the net, but Tsonga had the answer on a stretch forehand cross court. Tsonga's was eventually able to maintain the hold for a 2-2 score.
Then as quickly as it seemed he might at one point get the upper hand, a double fault at 3-3 would hand Tsonga a crucial second set break.
Throughout the match Tsonga was never bothered by Pospisil's several approaches to the net and usually seemed to come up with a shot that revealed his experience to gain the point.
A Pospisil forehand into the net would give Tsonga the second set 6-3 and a seemingly insurmountable lead. While Tsonga had blown a two-set-to-love lead against Stan Wawrinka at least year's French Open, such a feat would not be accomplished on this day by Pospisil.
The third set would start out close, but Tsonga took a break to go up 4-2 and by then Pospisil's fate was all but decided. It was probably for the best in order for Canada to rest him-up for his doubles match with Daniel Nestor against the French duo of Llodra and Benneteau on Saturday.
Tsonga sealed the match with an ace for France to take the 1-0 lead in the best of five match tie a short while later to win by a score of 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour 52 minutes. His experience and skill-level proved too much for his younger opponent in the end.
In the second match of the day the result was quite different. Canada's number one singles player and future Grand Slam threat, Milos Raonic took to the court to thunderous applause to face Julien Benneteau.
Despite being ranked quite close to one-another, with Raonic at 29th in the world and Benneteau at 35th, I had a pretty good feeling that Raonic was primed to take this one. Even though the thirty year old Benneteau defeated him back in November in the Paris Masters, Raonic had the home crowd behind him here in Vancouver and has looked solid this year with a win in Chennai and a third round showing at the Aussie Open.
Raonic did not disappoint and was in control of the match right from the beginning. The match went as smoothly as could be expected with Raonic winning 6-2, 6-4, 7-5 to even-up the tie at one apiece.
With one of the greatest doubles players to ever play the game in Daniel Nestor taking to the court Saturday, Canada has a solid shot at gaining the edge on France prior to Sunday's two singles matches.
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