Rookie Fed Cup players Françoise Abanda, Gabriela Dabrowski get the singles nods for Canada

The absence of star player Genie Bouchard and the injury absence of Fed Cup mainstay Aleksandra Wozniak meant that for the first time in awhile, captain Sylvain Bruneau had some big calls to make.

As the team's first World Group I tie, against the Czech Republic in Quebec City, gets under way on Saturday, Bruneau has chosen doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski and Fed Cup rookie Françoise Abanda to play the opening singles matches.

None of Bruneau's options have played a whole lot of singles in recent months.

Sharon Fichman, the elder stateswoman on the squad at 24, has the most Fed Cup singles experience – the only singles experience – of the four. But all of it has come on clay (most of it in the zonal competitions in South America), where she is 9-3.

Fichman has never played a Fed Cup singles match on a hard court. And since having knee surgery in late July, she hasn't played much; she won a match in qualifying at an Australian Open warmup event, and lost in the first round of qualifying in the main event to rising youngster Elisaveta Kulichkova. She reportedly isn't 100 per cent physically.

Dabrowski, who reached the third round of doubles at both the U.S. Open and two weeks ago at the Australian Open, also lost in the first round of singles qualifying Down Under. But she had a good run in some smaller North American hard-court events in singles at the end of 2014, and has just overall played more tennis.

Abanda, who turned 18 Thursday, is finally free of the WTA Tour's age restrictions on the number of tournaments she can play. Because she hit her maximum, she has played just one match in the last three months, a heartbreaking loss to veteran Shahar Pe'er of Israel in the first round of qualifying at her first Australian Open, when she was a set and two breaks of serve up in the second set.

The weekend is an uphill battle anyway; might as well see what Abanda's got in a spotlight situation.

Despite the absence of the Czech Republic's top two players, world No. 4 Petra Kvitova and No. 15 Lucie Safarova, it has depth and a rising player in 22-year-old Karolina Pliskova.

Pliskova is ranked a career-best No. 22; the other singles player for the Czechs, Tereza Smitkova, is 20 and made her big breakthrough last summer at Wimbledon, where she went from the qualifying to the round of 16 before losing to countrywoman Safarova. She's at a career-best No. 62 in the rankings.

Both Pliskova and Smitkova are making their Fed Cup debuts; the last few years, Kvitova and Safarova have done the lion's share of the work.

Den mother Kvitova Tweeted her support.

Here's the press-release quote from Bruneau:

The talk in Quebec City, of course, has predominantly been about the absent Bouchard, even before the news broke Thursday night about Sam Sumyk becoming her new coach.

She's getting a rough ride in the media (both Sportsnet and TVA Sports will broadcast the tie live, starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday with Pliskova vs. Abanda, followed by Smitkova vs. Dabrowski). Dabrowski even weighed on it with Sportsnet's Arash Madani.