After Vasek Pospisil wilted in the heat, the Canadian Davis Cup finds itself down 0-2 to France after Day 1

BAIE-MAHAULT, GUADELOUPE – The Canadian Davis Cup team hit a collective wall Friday in Guadeloupe, a physical wall that saw both Frank Dancevic and, later, Vasek Pospisil succumb to the conditions.

Add in a pair of opponents ranked in the world’s top 20 and the result was a pair of straight-set defeats that put the underdog Canadians down 0-2 in in the best-of-five-match tie.

A win in the doubles Saturday would seal the deal for the French, who would meet the winner of a tie between the Czech Republic and Germany in the World Group quarter-finals in July.

Gaël Monfils’ 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 win over Frank Dancevic in the opening match was fairly straightforward; the heat and humidity troubled Dancevic most in the second set. But Monfils, low-key (for him) and deadly consistent, kept his level throughout.

Dancevic does struggle in the heat; his notorious “Snoopy” episode in the extreme Australian heat two years ago remains one of those memorable tennis moments. He faced equally hot conditions this year in the first-round of qualifying – well above 40C – and lost in the first round.

For Pospisil, it’s worse. His entire career has been a battle against the elements and, despite his best efforts in the last few years, he has yet to find a solution.

But after just 17 minutes in the second singles match Friday, the Canadian led Gilles Simon 5-0 and for a moment, at least, had hope.

That was where it ended; Simon won seven consecutive games to take the first set and rolled from there, winning 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 as his younger Canadian opponent ran out of energy, and later in the match suffered from abdominal cramps.

“I don't feel like he was the better player today and I feel like I was playing well. It was just the way I was feeling physically that made the difference,"Pospisil said. "The conditions were tough and I felt really depleted. It becomes tough to stay sharp and make decisions quickly. But overall, it is very hard to look at the match and say that tactically I could have done anything differently. He was just more fit for these conditions.”

The result is not unexpected; Canada failed to win a set and needs to win Saturday’s doubles rubber to stay alive in the tie. Pospisil’s physical condition in some question, it won’t be known until then if he’s fit enough to try to team up with Philip Bester.

The French team, which on paper is Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet, could also be changed up to an hour before the 2 p.m. start. But there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to do it unless one of them is injured.

Simon said he had witnessed Pospisil struggle in the hot conditions at the Australian Open in January, where the two played in the first round and Simon won in four sets. So he knew it was a possibility. In Australia, it was warm but nearly as humid; the conditions in Guadeloupe promised to be far more onerous for the 25-year-old Canadian, who sweats excessively and on more than one big occasion, had had his body betray him in just exactly this way.

Mostly, Simon blamed himself for trying a little too hard early on.

“I haven’t played many home ties and maybe I wanted to play too well at first (for the crowd). And of course, I didn’t play well at all,” he said. “But eventually I found my rhythm.”

It was hot, and it was humid, but the conditions were the same for both players.

The French squad arrived in Guadeloupe a little earlier than the Canadians, but in the end, the underdogs usually suffer the most in the heat.

Every stroke takes a little more effort, and the best players in the world tend to make you put in a lot more mileage on the court. The stress of having to be near perfect just to keep up can take its toll.

No doubt Pospisil sighed heavily when he heard that the French had chosen this Caribbean island to host the tie; had it been played indoors in France, even on a clay court, he likely would have felt much more at ease and more bullish about his chances.

“He hit the wall and had no energy. Then he had cramps in his abdomen. It was a big fight for him: the conditions, Gilles Simon, and his (own) physical condition,” Laurendeau said.