How Canadians fit into tennis’ big year-end events | CBC sport

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Three major tournaments remain in the 2022 tennis season and Canada has an entry in each of them. Here is your guide:

1. Billie Jean King Cup Final

Formerly known as the Fed Cup, the Billie Jean King Cup is the top international team event in women’s tennis (equivalent to the men’s Davis Cup). Canada qualified for the 12-team finals back in April by beating Latvia 4-0 in a series played in Vancouver.

The final kicked off today in Scotland, where the teams will be split into four groups of three. In Group A, sixth-placed Canada meets No. 12 Italy on Thursday and No. 5 Switzerland on Friday. The four group winners advance to the semifinals on Saturday. The final goes on Sunday. Each matchup is a best-of-three: two singles matches followed by a doubles match, which may decide.

Canada’s top three singles players – Leylah Fernandez (world No. 40), Bianca Andreescu (45th) and Rebecca Marino (64th) – are all in the final, along with Gabriela Dabrowski, who is seventh in doubles. The other team member is Carol Zhao, who worked with Dabrowski in doubles in the qualifying win over Latvia. Best player in Switzerland is Belinda Bencic, 12th in singles. Italy’s Martina Trevisan, who is 28th in the singles.

The only player in the group to qualify for this year’s WTA Finals was Dabrowksi, who was eliminated alongside his Mexican teammate Giuliana Olmos in the group stage of the doubles draw last week. None of the players in last night’s WTA Finals singles title match made it to the Billie Jean King Cup Finals. Winner Caroline Garcia missed France’s qualifying loss to Italy, while Aryna Sabalenka’s Belarus was kicked out for invading Ukraine along with defending champions Russia.

2nd ATP Finals

Felix Auger-Aliassime’s incredible 16-game winning streak ended on Saturday when he lost to unseeded Danish teenager Holger Rune in the semi-finals of the Paris Masters, denying the 22-year-old Canadian a chance to win his fourth consecutive tournament. Rune continued to anger Novak Djokovic in the finals, but Felix achieved something in Paris that Rune failed to: qualify for next week’s ATP Finals in Italy.

Also earning places in the eight-man tournament were Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev. Taylor Fritz joined the field after world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz resigned due to an abdominal injury sustained at the Paris Masters. A draw will decide how players will be grouped for the round robin phase. There is also an eight-team doubles tournament for which no Canadian has qualified.

The finals start on Sunday and end a week later. The individual winner could win up to $4.7 million depending on how many games he wins in the group stage.

WATCH l Auger-Aliassime clinches third straight ATP title with Swiss Indoor title:

3rd knockout round of Davis Cup finals

The self-proclaimed “World Cup of Tennis” comes to an end in Spain from November 22nd to 27th. Auger-Aliassime helped Canada earn a spot in the eight-team elimination stage by beating Alcaraz in singles and then teaming up with Vasek Pospisil in a doubles win that gave Canada an important win over favored Spain in the preliminary round. The Spaniards still won the group, but Canada finished runners-up in the quarter-finals where they will play Germany on November 24.

Auger-Aliassime (now ranked sixth in the world singles), Denis Shapovalov (17th) and Pospisil (118th) are expected to take over the heavyweight division again for Canada after helping the country to a second-place finish ( his all-time best) in 2019. Alexis Galarneau (222nd) and Gabriel Diallo (248th) were also called up to the Canada team.