Final fall, Canada tasted glory with a victory on the Davis Cup. Subsequent week, the nation’s finest wheelchair tennis gamers start their quest so as to add to the Nice White North’s rising legacy in worldwide play.
Americas qualification for the World Crew Cup, the wheelchair equal of the Davis and Billie Jean King Cups, takes place subsequent week in Puebla, Mexico and the Canadians will likely be there trying to guide their place within the World Group occasion in Might.
The 2023 version of the World Crew Cup marks a return to the competitors for Canada, after COVID-19 restrictions stored them out of the 2022 occasion.
This 12 months, Canada is trying to return in an enormous method by sending their high three gamers in each the boys’s and girls’s wheelchair rankings.
On the boys’s aspect, the crew options world No. 59 Thomas Venos of Anmore, B.C., No. 88 Barry Henderson of Mission, B.C., and No. 191 Shawn Courchesne of Toronto, ON.
“It’s good to be again representing Canada at a World Crew Cup occasion,” mentioned Canadian No. 1 Venos. “[It’s] been just a few years because the final time and I really feel just like the crew has improved rather a lot. We can have an excellent probability at qualifying for the finals.”
One of the best end result for the Canadian males on the World Crew Cup got here in 2000 after they got here eighth.
“I’m so trying ahead to taking part in my second World Crew Cup qualification,” mentioned Henderson. “It’s such an honour to symbolize my nation internationally and I’m so grateful for the chance that Wheelchair Tennis at Tennis Canada has supplied for me and my teammates. These occasions are at all times a tremendous celebration of the camaraderie between nations and the athletic achievement of a number of the finest wheelchair tennis gamers from the Americas.”
Whereas it has solely been just a few years because the Canadian males tried their hand at qualification, it has been over a decade because the Canadian girls final participated.
Like their male counterparts, Anne-Marie Dolinar (world No. 48) of Toronto, ON, Natalia Lanucha (No. 56) of Montreal, QC, and Candice Combdon of Barrie, ON (No. 101) are the highest three Canadians on the planet rankings and will likely be representing their nation subsequent week in Mexico. They’re captained by Sarah Hunter.
“I’m so excited to be competing at my first WTC qualifiers and my first occasion as a part of the nationwide crew,” mentioned Dolinar. “[I] can’t wait to see what our girls’s crew can accomplish collectively.”
Canada’s finest end result on the ladies’s aspect was a fourth-place end in 2006.
Eight international locations are competing within the males’s competitors, with solely six on the ladies’s aspect. Canada is one among 5 international locations sending each a males’s and girls’s crew, together with Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.
“Tennis Canada is delighted to subject each a males’s and a girls’s crew to this years WTC qualifiers,” mentioned males’s crew captain Kai Schrameyer. “We will likely be going through sturdy competitors from the opposite taking part nations. Issues are steadily getting again to regular after the disruption brought about via the COVID pandemic and it’s nice to see Canadians competing in worldwide occasions once more in any respect ranges.”
Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala are sending only a males’s crew, whereas Chile will likely be solely represented by their girls’s squad.
For the qualifying occasion, groups will likely be divided into two teams and can play a spherical robin. The group winners will then play within the closing, with the victory clinching a spot in Might’s World Group.
Qualifying will run from Feb. 13 to 16.
