Without Eugenie Bouchard, Canada's Fed Cup team down 0-2 after losses by rookies Abanda and Dabrowski

Without top player Eugenie Bouchard, and without Fed Cup stalwart Aleksandra Wozniak, Canada's World Group I tie against the Czech Republic this weekend in Quebec City always was going to be an uphill battle.

The Czechs, who have won it all three of the last four years, also were absent their two top players. But the strong tennis nation, unlike fledgling Canada, has one major asset Canada has yet to develop: depth.

All four singles players on Saturday were making their Fed Cup singles debuts. But Karolina Pliskova, ranked No. 22, had few problems with 18-year-old Montrealer Françoise Abanda, defeating her 6-2, 6-4.

And Tereza Smitkova, ranked No. 63, had even fewer issues in dispatching doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski 6-1, 6-2, to give the Czechs what likely is an insurmountable lead going into Sunday's reverse singles.

Abanda had some looks late in the second set. She had a break point to tie it at 5-5. And Pliskova graciously offered up double faults on two match points before putting it away.

“It was definitely a new experience for me. It’s a different vibe on the court that I’m not very used to right now. It was a little bit difficult ... I think it was a good match. It just felt a little bit different though and I couldn’t really find my rhythm in the match. I was a little uptight and not letting go on shots," Abanda said.

Abanda, a gold-star prospect, has always been technically challenged on the serve, the product of early coaching that wasn't up to par. It has been an ongoing project for coach Simon Larose to convince a player who has had so much success as a teenager of the need to clean it up; the year and a half Abanda spent dealing with shoulder issues would only have made her that much more reticent.

It's improving – slowly. But you hope that seeing what a huge advantage her opponent Saturday had because of her powerful serve will drive the point home for good.

Abanda won just nine of 24 points with her second serve, although she imposed much of that on herself, with eight double-faults. The pressure was constant. On the other hand, the Montrealer hung in there when she had break points against her serve; Pliskova was successful on only three of 13 opportunities.

"She needs to be a bit more committed on her second serve and not be afraid, and go for it, give it a bit more acceleration. The frame of mind has to be a bit different," Bruneau told Sportsnet.

“I tried my best on every single point," Dabrowski said. "I felt I was really well prepared to play but I wasn’t able to impose the kind of game style I wanted to. I felt she was handling the things I was throwing at her pretty well."

Dabrowski will lead off against Pliskova on Sunday, with the Czechs poised to clinch the tie with a win. If that happens – and the odds are overwhelmingly in the Czechs' favour – Abanda's reverse singles against Smitkova wouldn't be played; the second match on the schedule would be the doubles match.

So it's not too early to look ahead to what this means for Canada's Fed Cup team, as its stay in prestigious World Group I may hang on winning a relegation tie in April.

The four first-round losers in Group I and the four first-round winners in Group II compete, with the Group I losers typically seeded. That means, the way it has gone so far in the Group II ties, that the Canadians could face the U.S., Switzerland, the winner of Spain/Romania, or the winner of Netherlands/Slovakia.

Slovakia and Switzerland would definitely be away ties, because the Canadians hosted the last time the two countries met. Home-court advantage for the others likely would be decided by a coin flip.

So, what of Bouchard's availability? She is not yet entered in the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, but it would be surprising if she didn't return. Bouchard has had great success both times she played it, reaching the semi-finals last year before narrowly losing to eventual champion Andrea Petkovic, and going through qualifying all the way to the quarter-finals in 2013. The deadline for that tournament, which takes place the week before Fed Cup, is still a few weeks away.

However, Bouchard is already entered in the Premier-level indoor clay-court event in Stuttgart that takes place the week immediately following the Fed Cup playoff. Unless the Canadian is one of the top four seeds in Stuttgart, which is highly unlikely given the strong field, she wouldn't even get a first-round bye in that tournament the way she will at the event in Antwerp, Belgium next week.

After Stuttgart, there are two top-level Premier tournaments in Madrid and Rome (which she loves), as well as a defence of her first and only career title in Nürnberg – all of that with the French Open right behind it. It's a jam-packed part of the season.

Bouchard must play one more Fed Cup tie before the Olympics in Rio, to be eligible.