VANCOUVER \u2014 Playing the opening match gives Liam Draxl the opportunity to start Canada off on the right foot against Brazil when the Davis Cup Qualifiers first round begins Friday.<\/p>\n
Draxl, ranked 145th in the world, faces Joao Lucas Reis da Silva, ranked No. 207, in the first singles match.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m just looking forward to setting the tone,\u201d Draxl, of Newmarket, Ont., said after Thursday\u2019s draw. \u201cFor sure nerves, excitement are both going to be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just looking forward to having fun with it, connecting with my boys, and just going for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reis da Silva feels confident after a good week of practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a tough match because he\u2019s a great competitor,\u201d said the right-handled native of Recife, Brazil.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s other match will see Montreal\u2019s Gabriel Diallo play Gustavo Heide.<\/p>\n
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On paper, it should be an easy match for the No. 39 Diallo, Canada\u2019s top-ranked player at the tie. It will be the first time he\u2019s faced Heide, ranked 253rd, but he\u2019s taking nothing for granted and plans to focus on his strengths.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn these surfaces (matches) go very fast,\u201d said Diallo. \u201cPlayers will be rewarded for playing quite aggressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all going to focus on our game and what we do well and give ourselves a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diallo arrives after suffering a first-round loss to German\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
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Heide said Diallo\u2019s booming serve is the Canadian\u2019s biggest weapon.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s going to be a really tough match,\u201d said the native of Sao Paulo.<\/p>\n
Canada comes into the competition ranked No. 9 while Brazil is No. 18.<\/p>\n
The tie will be played at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at the University of British Columbia.<\/p>\n
The competition will be best-of-five matches, with each contest being best-of-three sets.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Draxl and Calgary\u2019s Cleeve Harper will face Orlando Luz and Rafael Matos in a doubles match while Diallo meets Reis da Silva in singles.<\/p>\n
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If needed, Draxl will play Heider in singles.<\/p>\n
Harper and Draxl are in tough against the Brazilian pair that lost in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are prepared to get out there and have a good match,\u201d said Harper. \u201cThey are tough players. They\u2019re full of confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and Drax \u2026 are a good team. We\u2019re prepared for the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday a ceremony will be held to honour Vasek Pospisil, the Canadian tennis veteran who recently announced his retirement.<\/p>\n
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Diallo said he remembers watching the Vernon, B.C., native on television.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a young kid watching him compete for his nation, it was super inspiring and it was something I wanted to do,\u201d he said. \u201cThen having the privilege to share the court with him many times in Davis Cup, I learned a lot from him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to be a very nice ceremony and hopefully we can honour him with a good performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winning country 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
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If the Canadians win this weekend, they’re guaranteed to host the next tie in a venue yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n
This will be the first meeting between Canada and Brazil since 2007 and the seventh overall. Brazil leads the head-to-head series 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
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Jim Morris, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 Playing the opening match gives Liam Draxl the opportunity to start Canada off on the right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7426,49,48,7636,187177,187176,24937,187174,24939,44,187175,164200],"class_list":["post-456538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-brazil","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-davis-cup","tag-doubles-match","tag-draxl","tag-gabriel-diallo","tag-joao-lucas-reis-da-silva","tag-liam-draxl","tag-news","tag-recife","tag-singles-match"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456538","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=456538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}