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After Day 1, Canada’s Davis Cup team tied 1-1 with Japan
The last-minute withdrawals of top Canadians Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil from this weekend’s first-round Davis Cup tie against Japan hurt, no doubt about it.
But their replacements did about as well as they could Friday in Tokyo as the two opening singles matches were played.
And at the end of it, Canada and Japan were tied 1-1 after Frank Dancevic’s impressive 6-4, 7-6 (2), 6-1 takedown of Japanese No. 2 Go Soeda.
Toronto’s Peter Polansky went into the opener against Japanese No. 1 Kei Nishikori, a top 20 player, with little chance. And if the 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 score looked competitive, it was a match that was really never in doubt.
Polansky, ranked about 120 spots lower, just doesn’t have a big weapon to make noise against a better player, even if he occasionally has in the past.
More than that, he still seems to lack belief; after getting up to a 4-2 lead in the first set, he lost that one. And a break at 2-2 in each of the other two sets – the first, at the end of a 12-minute game – sealed the deal.
“I was a little bit tight in the beginning, but he was playing well, very solid from the baseline,” Nishikori said in a post-match interview on Sportsnet. “I like the court; it’s a little bit slower than the usual hard court, and I have more time to hit my baseline game."
For Dancevic, who faced a tricky customer in Soeda, there was a lot of pressure.
But after going down 1-4 in the first set, he varied his shot selection quite a bit, served magnificently, and wore down an opponent of the same age and similar ranking.
Soeda played brilliantly at times, not-so-brilliantly at others, while Dancevic was solid throughout.
“At the beginning of the match I felt I was a bit on the defensive side, and he was taking control of the points. When I was down 4-1 I just changed my tactics a little bit, raised the ball a little higher to get myself in the point, and when I had the opportunity, tried to make him run,” Dancevic told Sportsnet. “I pretty much stayed with my tactics throughout the match, try to stay on top, try to stay aggressive, try to use most of my game.
“Just basically throw a lot of variety in there.”
Now the tie becomes a best-of-three and, with a win by Dancevic over Nishikori in the reverse singles on Sunday a long shot, it will be up to the doubles team Saturday and Polansky against Soeda in what could be the fifth and deciding rubber Sunday – if Canada is to advance to the quarter-finals
“Our plan was to be 1-1 going into Saturday. We knew it was going to be difficult to take Kei down the first day,” captain Martin Laurendeau said. “This is the position we expected to be in, and tomorrow’s going to be a big match, to try to get up 2-1 going into the final day.”
Laurendeau hedged, fudged, hemmed and hawed an awful lot when asked who would play with veteran Daniel Nestor.
But our information is that Pospisil definitely won’t play.
Dancevic is the far superior doubles player with the bigger serve, and Polansky will need to conserve all his energy for what could be the decider.
So it’s likely to be Nestor and Dancevic, even if Laurendeau has thrown a few curves before – such as that ill-fated decision to throw Raonic into the doubles against France two years ago.
