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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGabriel Diallo, of Canada, reacts during his Davis Cup qualifying tennis match against Marton Fucsovics, of Hungary, in Montreal on Saturday, February 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Graham Hughes<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge because you\u2019re playing an opponent that you don\u2019t the know the feeling of his (serve), how it\u2019s coming, his history,\u201d Dancevic told a media conference Tuesday. \u201cThere are different tendencies, different players. Guys can play at a lot higher level than their ranking.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can surprise you. Everyone has their own way of playing and their own style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dancevic and his players will be searching the internet for past games played by the Brazilians to learn as much as they can.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most control you have is with yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cPrepare yourself the best possible going into the matches and then you can sort of adjust as the matches go along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joining Diallo and Draxl on the Canadian team is Alexis Galarneau of Laval, Que., Cleeve Harper of Calgary and Nicolas Arseneault of Richmond Hill, Ont. The team has a combined 29 games of Davis Cup experience.<\/p>\n
The most experienced player for Brazil is doubles player Rafael Matos, who is making his 10th appearance. The rest of the team \u2014 Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, Gustavo Heidi, Matheus Pucinelli De Almeida and Orlando Luz \u2014 have a combined 11 games experience.<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s captain Jaime Oncins doesn\u2019t doubt Canada is the favourite heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it\u2019s good to be the underdog,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a good team. We\u2019re ready. We have a lot of fight. We\u2019re going to be ready for what\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diallo comes to Vancouver after suffering a first-round loss to Germany\u2019s Alexander Zverev at the Australian Open. Last year was his first full season on tour where he broke into the Top 50, climbing as high as No. 33. He won his first tour-level title on grass at the Libema Open in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an incredible player, incredible athlete,\u201d said Dancevic. \u201cHe\u2019s found his way on tour and developed big weapons. His athleticism shines on court.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s able to do so much and his level has just been increasing year after year. He\u2019s the leader of the team right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The matches will be played Friday and Saturday at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at the University of British Columbia.<\/p>\n
On Saturday a ceremony will be held to honour Vasek Popisil, the Canadian tennis veteran who recently announced his retirement.<\/p>\n
Dancevic said the team competing this weekend represents a changing of the guard in Canadian tennis. Galarneau is the oldest player at 26.<\/p>\n
The team will be without world No. 8 F\u00e9lix Auger-Aliassime and No. 25 Denis Shapovalov, who along with Pospisil were key contributors to Canada\u2019s lone Davis Cup title in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the next generation of young Canadians coming up,\u201d Dancevic said. \u201cThis is the beginning of the new era, the young guys who are going to take over in the future for Team Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty exciting to be part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The competition will be best-of-five matches, with each match being best-of-three sets.<\/p>\n
The winning nation will advance to the Davis Cup Qualifiers Second Round in September against either France or Slovakia. The loser will compete in the World Cup Group I in September.<\/p>\n
If the Canadians win this weekend they are guaranteed to host the next tie in a venue yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
This will be the first meeting between Canada and Brazil since 2007 and the seventh overall. Brazil leads the head-to-head 4-2 and won that most-recent meeting 18 years ago 3-1 on clay in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Last year Canada lost to Hungary in the 2025 Qualifiers first round at IGA Stadium in Montreal.<\/p>\n
It will be the first time a Davis Cup tie has been played in Vancouver since 2015, when Canada defeated Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a place we always love to play as a team,\u201d said Dancevic. \u201cWe always had amazing support. We\u2019re super excited for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2013 Captain Frank Dancevic says there\u2019s plenty of unknowns as ninth-ranked Canada prepares to host No. 18…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-452044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452044","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=452044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}