For decades, Canadian tennis was a bit of a joke.  While their neighbors to the south racked up Davis Cup titles, the land where hockey is king was left to mediocrity.  But the US isn’t the only country that’s benefited from immigration.  With names like Raonic, Pospisil, and Dancevic, the Canadian team reads like a melting pot of east Europe.

Canada couldn’t have asked for a nicer draw (so far).  Italy has two top players, but neither is in the top 20.  Meanwhile, Raonic often wins matches by a serve that . may be the best in men’s tennis.  Raonic had to do the heavy lifting of winning both his singles matches.  The doubles team of Nestor-Pospisil was critical too because Canada doesn’t have a reliable number 2.  Everyone had to do their job.

Raonic won his opening round on Day 1 over Fognini in three sets.  Pospisil did well by pushing Seppi to three sets.  The Canadian doubles team needed to go 15-13 to beat Italy, coincidentally, the same fifth set score the Americans had when losing to Serbia.

Raonic was up 2 sets to none over Seppi, but Seppi took the third set.  The fourth set was even until a late break that allowed Raonic to win 7-5.

There was an outside shot that the next round for the Canadians would be its American neighbor, but the doubles loss by the Bryan brothers, their second consecutive loss, meant the US was in a big hole, with Querrey needing to beat Djokovic to keep the tie alive.

For a while, Djokovic struggled against Querrey hampered by an ankle injury.  Djokovic admitted if this hadn’t been Davis Cup he might have entertained the idea of quitting.  Instead, he took some anti-inflammatories, and made the best of it.  Djokovic had a late break in the first and took it 7-5.  The second set went to tiebreak, which Querrey won, 7-6.  However, Djokovic ran away with sets 3 and 4.  It didn’t help that, at 2-0 down, Querrey couldn’t hold after being up 40-0 with a missed volley, spectacular Djokovic return, and a double fault contributing to a break, and from then on, a total lack of confidence as Querrey misfired. Querrey only won 1 game in the last two sets.

Argentina managed to win its tie in Argentina short-handed.  Perhaps they shouldn’t have picked Simon to play this Davis Cup as faster courts are better. Gasquet is the better player on clay, and he’s on a hot streak.  The Argentines managed the double upset beating Simon in both singles as well as taking the doubles.  While Carlos Berlocq is a tough player, he is ranked in the 70s.  Even so, he beat Simon in 4 sets, though Simon kept it interesting even in the fourth set.

That was a fifth match rubber as Tsonga did his part by winning against Monaco in a straight set beatdown.  This is part of the fun of Davis Cup.  You may have a tough lead player and you may even have a tough doubles team, but if you are the opponent and can win that doubles tie, it leaves the upset within reach.  Spain’s amazing record has a lot to do with Ferrer playing number 2 behind Nadal.  Put Almagro or Verdasco there, and maybe Spain loses more often because they can’t win the Spain #2 singles matches.

The Czech Republic is also playing short-handed with Berdych missing and Stepanek only playing doubles (and they lost doubles), but Lukas Rosol, the giant killer of Wimbledon, won both his singles over Kukushkin and Koroleve, playing for Kazakhstan.  It’s not so much that Kazakhstan is raising so many native grown players, but they have money and tennis enthusiasm, so they’ve convinced several Russians, with promise of financial support and training, to play for Kazakhstan, and this has pushed this east European country into tennis relevancy.  Rosol, who recently celebrated the Davis Cup win with his teammates last year, can now be his own hero.

This leaves the semis as Canada vs. Serbia and Argentina vs. Czech Republic.