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Canada’s Fed Cup squad will field its top team against the Slovak Republic
Slovakia's top two players, Dominika Cibulkova and Daniela Hantuchova, will not be in uniform when the country travels to Quebec City to play Canada in a World Group I playoff tie April 19 and 20.
Canada, on the other hand, will have its best– the same squad that easily defeated Serbia in Montreal in February.
Nominated to the team once again are Eugenie Bouchard, Aleksandra Wozniak, Sharon Fichman and Gabriela Dabrowski.
The Slovak defections are a familiar story; in February, Serbia was without Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, severely undermanned against Bouchard and a strong Canadian squad. But there’s a big difference this time: the Slovaks have a lot more depth.
“It honestly doesn’t change our preparation. But of course, (Australian Open and Miami finalist) Cibulkova is playing really well at the moment. She’s on fire. So her absence is
hardly a disadvantage,” Canadian Fed Cup captain Sylvain Bruneau said Wednesday as he discussed his player nominations for the tie which, should they win, would put the Canadians among the top eight nations in women’s tennis for the first time ever.
There were early signs the Slovaks wouldn’t field their best. Cibulkova has long been committed to a WTA Tour event in Malaysia played the same week as the Fed Cup (talk about tennis’s alphabet-soup of various factions conspiring to shoot each other in the foot).
Bruneau spoke to Cibulkova last month in Indian Wells, though. And the 24-year-old asked him a lot of questions about the tie, such as where it would be held, and appeared quite interested, he said.
Hantuchova is entered in a clay-court event in Europe that begins the day after Fed Cup ends. That’s not a deal-breaker in itself – Bouchard traveled all the way to Doha overnight
after wrapping things up in Montreal in February, a decision she later regretted – but it was a hint.
The absence of the veteran Hantuchova, once No. 3 but currently ranked No. 30, would likely be felt more in doubles. Hantuchova has won dozens of big double titles in her long career; Bruneau isn’t convinced she would even have played singles.
That tells you a lot about the next two in line, the players who will be expected to shoulder the load for the Slovaks.
“(Magdalena) Rybarikova is an extremely talented player who can do a lot of things on the court,” Bruneau said. “And (Jana Cepelova), not that she’s not talented, she is, but she’s really a fighter. She made the final in Charleston last week, and beat Serena Williams.”
Cepelova also defeated Hantuchova at that tournament, giving up just three games. Her run to the final vaulted her to No. 51 in the world.
The other two members of the Slovak team will be Anna Schmiedlova and Michaela Honcova.
“To think it’s in the bag, no, not at all. We know it’ll be tough. On paper their squad is weaker than if Cibulkova and Hantuchova were there. Of course the door is a bit more wide open,” Bruneau said. “But you don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”
The French expression Bruneau used there was actually a lot more colourful. In English, it means, “You don’t sell the bear’s fur before you kill it.”
Rybarikova is the granny of
the group at age 25. Cepelova is 20, Schmiedlova (ranked No. 65) just 19, and Honcova (No. 262) is 22.
Bruneau said that, as usual, he wouldn’t confirm his two singles players until the players get together for training days next week.
But certainly, if Wozniak was chosen over Fichman two months ago – before her encouraging results during the winter hard-court season in Monterrey and Indian Wells – there’s little to indicate he would go a different way this time, health permitting of course. Bruneau said he made that February decision only Thursday, two days before the first ball was struck.
Fichman has also had a good winter, and is at No. 89 in the rankings. The 23-year-old would be a lock to play the fifth and final match, a doubles rubber that might end up being the determining factor.
PEPS, the venue at the Université Laval in Quebec City that will host the tie, is home to the Bell Challenge event on the WTA Tour every September.
But Tennis Canada will have to lay down a different court surface to conform to the norms set out by the International Tennis Federation.
The Bell Challenge is the only remaining tournament played on Uni-turf, which is a lightning-fast indoor carpet that’s pretty old-school. The men’s tour hasn’t used it for years.
The ITF mandates that any surface used for Fed Cup must be used by at least three WTA tournaments, to avoid any hankypanky by the host nation.
As well, we’re told Wozniak isn’t a huge fan of it. But that would be a secondary consideration.
“It’s very quick, and it would have been good for us,” Bruneau said.
The tie will be played on a Premier surface – but not the same court laid down at Centre Claude-Robillard in February.
That one, purchased from the now-defunct San Jose ATP Tour event where Canadian Milos Raonic has had so much success, has been stuck and unstuck and laid down and rolled up and transported so many times, it needs to be given a swift, merciless burial.
A new Premier court was purchased at a cost of about $30,000. It will quickly come into use again, if the Davis Cup World Group playoff tie between Canada and Colombia in September ends up being held at an indoor venue.
"I think the girls are in full form, no injuries, have played a lot of matches, and come to it with a great attitude,” Bruneau said. “I like our chances, but the tie could go one way or the other. I’d say it’s well balanced, so it’ll be exciting in that way. The level of the teams is similar, not only on paper but in reality.”
