Dancevic injury eliminates Canada from Davis Cup

With its two top players – both ranked in the top 25 in the world – on the shelf, it already was an uphill battle for Canada to advance in its first-round Davis Cup tie against Japan this weekend.

But once Frank Dancevic began grimacing barely a half-hour into his reverse singles against Japanese No. 1 Kei Nishikori Sunday in Tokyo, it was over.

Dancevic, who played singles Friday and doubles Saturday, retired with a left abdominal injury down 6-2, 1-0 to hand the tie to Japan, which advances to the Davis Cup quarterfinals for the first time in its history.

See the full Laurendeau interview here.

It’s never easy for any team to win without its two best players – just look at Spain, with depth Canada can only dream of, losing in the first round to Canada last year and to Germany this weekend, both times without top guns Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer.

But in this case, there will be questions asked about Laurendeau’s decision-making, because it’s not the first time he seemingly has ignored health circumstances that were right in front of him when he made personnel decisions.

Two years ago, in the team’s first World Group appearance in decades against France in Vancouver, he was faced with a decision on who would team up with veteran doubles star Daniel Nestor.

Despite the fact that Pospisil is a far superior doubles player to Raonic, and despite the fact that Raonic had been nursing a left knee injury all week, he chose Raonic to partner Nestor in the crucial doubles tie.

It didn’t go well.

Worse still, Raonic aggravated the knee and ended up withdrawing from the reverse singles against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga the next day even though the tie – and Canadian hopes – was still alive. The Canadians were major underdogs, but that sealed their fate.

This time around, Laurendeau selected Pospisil to the four-man squad knowing the extent of the 23-year-old’s back woes (a bulging disc, an injured sacroiliac joint and a week of intense rehab in Vancouver before flying over to Tokyo) and knowing, even though Pospisil hadn’t hit a ball in two weeks, that the very best scenario would have him play – maybe – one match. It was a big risk.

Pospisil practiced sparingly all week in Tokyo. After his first one-hour session, his back was throbbing for 30 minutes. When he finally tried to serve for the first time since he pulled out of the Australian Open, he felt sharp pain.

It was never looking good, although with the timing of that final practice and the official draw, when the names were to be submitted, you have to give some benefit of the doubt to the captain.

Add to that the fact that Dancevic suffered a left abdominal strain during his first-round qualifying match at the Australian Open.

Despite the injury, the 29-year-old from Niagara Falls won two more qualifying

rounds to make the main draw, and got through a difficult first-round loss to Frenchman Benoit Paire in the hallucination-inducing Melbourne heat.

The searing heat of Australia may have helped the injury, while the cool, indoor conditions in Tokyo may have had the opposite effect.

Last week, Dancevic played a smaller event in Hawaii; he lost to an unknown from Kenya.

To count on Dancevic, who hadn’t played a Davis Cup match in a year, for three best-of-five set rubbers in three days was dreaming in Technicolor.

It’s hardly surprising that abdominal strain was the reason he was forced to retire Sunday, and may well, in retrospect, have contributed to the level of his play in the doubles on Saturday.

Laurendeau certainly would have been aware of the ongoing abdominal issue; he was in Melbourne and attended all of Dancevic’s matches.

During that 2012 tie against France, the captain defended his decision to use Raonic in the doubles by saying he had been unaware of his knee injury. But the knee had been wrapped all week in practice, so that was unlikely.

So what were the captain’s options against Japan?

Well, they were limited.

Had Canadian-born Jesse Levine, an American recently repatriated to play for Canada, been available, perhaps Laurendeau’s decision would have been different. But Levine is recuperating from December elbow surgery and won’t return until the spring.

He isn’t as good as Dancevic, but he would have been a viable singles option.

When Tennis Canada’s Tom Tebbutt asked Laurendeau why he didn’t consider doubles specialist Adil Shamasdin, who was with the team as a practice partner, as the fourth man to play with Nestor on Saturday, his answers were, frankly, a load of codswallop.

It appears he never had any intention of allowing Shamasdin to get on court, under any circumstances.

It wouldn’t have been a perfect solution. For one thing, the 31-year-old from Pickering, Ont. most often plays the ad side, which is Nestor’s territory. For another, he doesn’t have the big serve Nestor likes to complement his lefty touch.

Sportsnet reporter Arash Madani confirmed Laurendeau’s take on Nestor’s preferences during its broadcast.

But at least the move would have saved Dancevic – and his abs – for the Sunday singles. Perhaps Nestor and Shamasdin might even have won the doubles; anything is possible. Shamasdin is a flashy, crowd-pleasing shotmaker who, despite likely Davis Cup debut nerves, could have come up with one of those special performances that so often can happen in Davis Cup competition.

Just look at what 21-year-old Yasutaka Uchiyama did in Saturday's doubles.

All of that is hindsight now. But most people believe Nestor to hold an inordinate amount of power in the Canadian Davis Cup equation, and whom he partners in the often-crucial doubles rubber is entirely his call.

On one level, the 41-year-old has earned that, with his status in the game and after more

than 20 years of unwavering loyalty in representing his country.

But as in Vancouver against the French, injuries forced the Canadian captain to make difficult decisions. And it’s his job to make the best overall decisions for his team, even if they’re not what Nestor would prefer.

So, in both cases, either Laurendeau was ignoring obvious injury issues and hoping for the best. Or he was taking the word of his players that they were good to go, wanting to believe that was the case. Or, he was bowing to the wishes of his doubles specialist.

Whatever the case, the injuries that devastated the Canadian team in this tie certainly were out of Laurendeau's control.

Canada must now wait until April’s draw to see which team they will face in September in a relegation match, which they must win to remain in the prestigious World Group in 2015.

In the fifth and final rubber, called a dead rubber because the outcome of the tie had been decided and shortened to best-of-three sets, Go Soeda defeated a listless Peter Polansky 6-1, 6-4 to make the final score Japan 4, Canada 1.