Meet Canada’s Davis Cup Opponents: Britain, Argentina, Finland – Tennis Canada

Team Canada has a tough task ahead of them if they are to reach the Davis Cup Final 8 for the third year in a row. The group stage of the Davis Cup Finals takes place next week and Canada finds themselves in Group D with the hosts Great Britain, led by US Open semifinalist Jack Draper, a deep team from Argentina, and the squad that eliminated them in 2023, Finland. 

Before Canada hits the court in Manchester, let’s meet the teams standing between them and a spot in Malaga. 

Argentina 

• Date: Tuesday, Sep. 10 
• Head-to-Head: Argentina leads 2-1 
• Last Meeting: 2001 Group I Americas Semifinal (Cordoba, Argentina), Argentina won 5-0 

On paper, Argentina is the strongest team in the group. They are the only country to boast three players inside the ATP Top 100, all of whom are in the Top 40. Tomas Martin Etcheverry, the Argentine No. 3 who is ranked No. 33 on the ATP Tour, would be the No. 2 singles player on every other team in the group. 

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The tricky part for the Argentines will be the surface in Manchester. If the tie were played on clay, they would be overwhelming favourites but instead, it will be on indoor hard courts. Those three Argentines, Etcheverry, No. 21 Sebastian Baez, and No. 29 Francisco Cerundolo have reached a combined one final on a hard court (Baez won Winston-Salem in 2023) and none have made it past the third round of a hard-court major in their careers. 

Interestingly, the three of them have a combined 7-7 record in Davis Cup play. Baez and Cerundolo are both 3-3 while Etcheverry is 1-1. 

Baez, the projected Argentine No. 1, has been busy in 2023 with a 30-21 record and two titles, both on clay in February. The only time Baez has won consecutive matches off of clay this year was when he reached the third round of the Australian Open, although his first-round opponent retired.  

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The 23-year-old is responsible for sending Argentina to the Davis Cup Finals, having won the fifth and deciding rubber in a third-set tiebreak in their qualifying tie in February. 

He and Auger-Aliassime have never met on tour, but Cerundolo, the projected Argentine No. 2, and the Canadian No. 1 were a hot rivalry in early 2023, meeting in the third round of each of the first three big events of the year. Auger-Aliassime won the first two at the Australian Open and Indian Wells before Cerundolo tagged him back in Miami.  

Cerundolo has had some good results this year, including a title in Umag in July, a quarter-final in Madrid and a round-of-16 appearance at Roland-Garros where he pushed Novak Djokovic to five sets.  

Despite being his nation’s No. 3, Etcheverry just beat Cerundolo in the second round of the US Open. He is 25-22 on the season. 

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Argentina has a pair of veteran doubles players to round out their lineup, 36-year-old Andres Molteni and 41-year-old No. 33 Maximo Gonzalez. Gonzalez is the only member of the Argentinian team who has a winning record at Davis Cup (8-7). 

While Argentina does lead the head-to-head with Canada and swept their most recent meeting, this will be the first neutral-site tie between the two countries. The host nation won all three previous ties with Argentina’s two wins coming on clay, whereas Canada’s victory was on hard court.  

Finland 

• Date: Thursday, Sep. 12 
• Head-to-Head: Tied 1-1 
• Last Meeting: 2023 Davis Cup Final 8 Quarter-finals (Malaga, Spain), Finland won 2-1 

Canada will be out for revenge when they meet Finland in the second group stage tie after the underdog Finns ended the Canucks’ bid for back-to-back titles in the quarter-finals last November. 

The Finnish squad will look fairly similar to the one that upset Canada in Malaga with four of five team members returning. Otto Virtanan and Harri Heliovaara are both back and looking for more success against the Canadians. 

Virtanen comes in at No. 125 on the ATP Tour, having played just six main-draw matches this year. However, at the US Open, he came through qualifying and won his first-round match before losing to Alex de Minaur in the second round. 

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With the withdrawal of top-ranked Finn Emil Ruusuvuori, Virtanen is expected to play the No. 1 singles role at the Davis Cup. He and Auger-Aliassime have never met on tour. 

Heliovaara is Finland’s doubles star, currently ranked No. 11 in the world. Over the last two years, he has played Davis Cup doubles with four different partners. He and Virtanen clinched the tie over Canada in the deciding doubles last year.  

Patrick Kaukovalta is also back, replacing Ruusuvuori who withdrew just prior to the start of the event. Kaukovalta played in the tie against Canada last year, losing to Milos Raonic, and is currently ranked outside the Top 700 in both singles and doubles. 

Eero Vasa, singles world No. 706 and doubles No. 309, is the lone member of Team Finland who was not on the team for the last matchup. He rounds out the squad with doubles world No. 102 Patrik Niklas-Salminen, who was present but did not play at the 2023 quarter-final. 

Great Britain 

• Date: Sunday, Sep. 15 
• Head-to-Head: Great Britain leads 2-0 
• Last Meeting: 2017 World Group First Round (Ottawa, ON), Great Britain won 3-2 

The host nation may be the team to beat in Manchester as they have arguably the most in-form player on any of the four teams, Jack Draper. The British No. 1 is coming off a semifinal performance at the US Open, his best result at a major to date. 

Draper also reached the quarter-finals in Cincinnati last month, beating Auger-Aliassime (in controversial fashion), against whom he leads the head-to-head 2-0. He has reached a pair of finals this year and won the title in Stuttgart in July. The big-serving Brit is very dangerous on fast surfaces and will be a particularly challenging opponent on home soil indoors. 

Even if Draper is tired or withdraws late from the tie, the Brits boast veteran depth with former world No. 8 Cameron Norrie and former No. 21 Dan Evans. However, both Brits have struggled mightily in 2024. Evans has a 4-17 record on the year while Norrie has not played since July. 

Evans is the lone member of the British squad who participated in the most recent Davis Cup encounter between the two nations in 2017. He played a pair of singles matches, beating a then 17-year-old Denis Shapovalov but losing to Vasek Pospisil. 

Britain also boasts on paper the strongest doubles team. They are the only country in the group with two Top 20 players in the doubles rankings: No. 6 Joe Salisbury and No. 19 Neal Skupski.  

Skupski went 3-1 in doubles during the 2023 Davis Cup, including two decisive doubles wins in the group stage which allowed Britain to reach the Final 8. His lone loss was in a dead rubber. All of those matches were with Evans as his partner. The addition of Salisbury only makes the British team more intimidating.