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Final fall, Canada tasted glory with a victory on the Davis Cup. Subsequent week, the nation’s greatest 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 Group Cup, the wheelchair equal of the Davis and Billie Jean King Cups, takes place subsequent week in Puebla, Mexico and the Canadians shall be there seeking to e-book their place within the World Group occasion in Could.
The 2023 version of the World Group Cup marks a return to the competitors for Canada, after COVID-19 restrictions saved them out of the 2022 occasion.
This 12 months, Canada is seeking to return in a giant approach by sending their prime three gamers in each the lads’s and ladies’s wheelchair rankings.
On the lads’s facet, the group 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 Group Cup occasion,” mentioned Canadian No. 1 Venos. “[It’s] been a number of years because the final time and I really feel just like the group has improved quite a bit. We could have a very good likelihood at qualifying for the finals.”
The most effective outcome for the Canadian males on the World Group Cup got here in 2000 once they got here eighth.
“I’m so wanting ahead to taking part in my second World Group Cup qualification,” mentioned Henderson. “It’s such an honour to signify my nation internationally and I’m so grateful for the chance that Wheelchair Tennis at Tennis Canada has offered 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 greatest wheelchair tennis gamers from the Americas.”
Whereas it has solely been a number of 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 shall 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 group,” mentioned Dolinar. “[I] can’t wait to see what our girls’s group can accomplish collectively.”
Canada’s greatest outcome on the ladies’s facet was a fourth-place end in 2006.
Eight international locations are competing within the males’s competitors, with solely six on the ladies’s facet. Canada is one in every of 5 international locations sending each a males’s and ladies’s group, together with Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.
“Tennis Canada is delighted to area each a males’s and a girls’s group to this years WTC qualifiers,” mentioned males’s group captain Kai Schrameyer. “We shall be dealing with robust competitors from the opposite taking part nations. Issues are progressively getting again to regular after the disruption prompted by 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 group, whereas Chile shall be solely represented by their girls’s squad.
For the qualifying occasion, groups shall 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 Could’s World Group.
Qualifying will run from Feb. 13 to 16.
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