{"id":141803,"date":"2025-09-13T20:50:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141803\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T20:50:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:50:04","slug":"canada-advances-to-davis-cup-qualifiers-after-win-against-israel-as-protests-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141803\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada advances to Davis Cup qualifiers after win against Israel as protests continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Hundreds of demonstrators block a street while protesting Team Israel’s participation in the Davis Cup tennis match against Team Canada in Halifax on Saturday.Darren Calabrese\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canada advanced to the 2026 Davis Cup Qualifiers after taking a 3-0 lead over Israel in a best-of-five tie played in an empty Halifax stadium amid protests.<\/p>\n

Liam Draxl of Newmarket, Ont., and Cleeve Harper of Calgary came back from a set down to defeat Jordan Hasson and Ofek Shimanov 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 in Saturday\u2019s first match.<\/p>\n

Singles wins by Draxl and Montreal\u2019s Gabriel Diallo on Friday meant the doubles victory sealed Canada\u2019s advancement out of the World Group 1 stage and into next year\u2019s qualifiers for the main Davis Cup tournament.<\/p>\n

With victory assured, Canada elected to replace world No. 35 Diallo with Harper for a singles match with Orel Kimhi. Draxl was scheduled to cap the tie with a match against Daniel Cukierman.<\/p>\n

Tennis Canada made the call earlier this week to hold the matches without spectators or media present, citing safety concerns it said were flagged by local authorities and security agencies.<\/p>\n

The streets surrounding the Halifax Common park were closed for about an hour Saturday as a few hundred protesters chanted, sang and waved signs opposing Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.<\/p>\n

People holding a banner made from a tennis net that read \u201cDon\u2019t play ball\u201d led the demonstration.<\/p>\n

Some signs denounced Halifax Mayor Andy Filmore for allowing the event to take place. Friday\u2019s matches were also protested.<\/p>\n

About 400 Canadian athletes and academics, including Olympic runner Moh Ahmed, had previously urged Tennis Canada to cancel the games.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said it was disappointed the event had to be closed to fans. It referred to the protesters as extremists who silenced \u201cthousands of fans … who simply wanted to show pride in their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s leading authority on food crises declared famine in Gaza City in August, after months of warnings by aid groups that Israel\u2019s restrictions of food and other aid into Gaza were causing starvation among Palestinian civilians.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

With reports from The Associated Press and Darren Calabrese in Halifax<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Hundreds of demonstrators block a street while protesting Team Israel’s participation in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-141803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}