 | Today, we put a bow on the year in Canadian tennis following the country's quick ousters from the Davis and Billie Jean King Cups. Plus, the Canadian men's soccer team advances, the PWHL pre-season gets going and the last undefeated team loses. | | | That's a wrap on Canada's tennis year
| | | Canadian tennis players experienced another tough season finale today as Canada was eliminated from the Davis Cup with a 2-0 loss to Germany in the quarterfinals of the global men's team championship in Spain.
With top singles player Felix Auger-Aliassime missing the knockout stage for the second straight year after leading Canada to its first Davis Cup title in 2022, 86th-ranked Gabriel Diallo lost in straight sets to No. 88 Daniel Altmaier before No. 56 Denis Shapovalov fell 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5) to No. 43 Jan-Lennard Struff to complete a German sweep of the best-of-three tie.
Canada's quick exit came three days after the Canadian women's team also got swept in the quarterfinals of their Davis Cup equivalent, the Billie Jean King Cup, played at the same indoor arena in Malaga, Spain. Leylah Fernandez could not replicate her magic from last year, when she went 4-0 in singles play at the 12-team Finals to help Canada hoist the Cup for the first time. Fernandez and Rebecca Marino both lost in straight sets as Canada fell easily to Great Britain after a first-round bye.
As the 2024 tennis season comes to a close this week, Canada has just two players ranked in the top 50 in singles. Auger-Aliassime has slipped to 29th — down from a career-high sixth as recently as March 2023 — while Fernandez has fallen to 31st after reaching No. 13 in 2022. Neither player won a tournament this year, and their best result at a Grand Slam was Auger-Aliassime's modest fourth-round run at the French Open.
The most exciting Canadian tennis moments of 2024 came at the Olympics in Paris. Auger-Aliassime reached the men's semifinals as the 13th seed before getting waxed by No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, then lost the bronze-medal match to Italy's Lorenzo Musetti in the maximum three sets. But Felix didn't leave empty-handed, teaming with Gabby Dabrowski to win the bronze in mixed doubles — Canada's first Olympic tennis medal since Daniel Nestor and Sebastien Lareau won the men's doubles gold in 2000.
Dabrowski also had an excellent year with her doubles teammate Erin Routliffe — a Canadian who switched to representing New Zealand (her country of birth) a few years ago. The 2023 U.S. Open champs reached the final at Wimbledon, won a smaller grass-court event in England and were the runners-up at three other tournaments (including the top-tier Miami Open and Canada's National Bank Open) to earn a spot in the lucrative WTA Finals earlier this month in Saudi Arabia. They won the eight-team event, splitting $1.125 million US. That's the biggest cash prize of the year for women's doubles.
Dabrowski, now ranked third in the world in doubles, did not get to take the court at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals as Fernandez was unable to force a deciding doubles match against Great Britain on Sunday.
The British went on to lose their semifinal 2-1 to Slovakia, who today got swept in the championship tie by Italy. World No. 4 Jasmine Paolini clinched her country's first women's Cup since 2013 with a 6-2, 6-1 win over 43rd-ranked Rebecca Sramkova.
The Davis Cup quarterfinals continue Thursday with the United States vs. Australia (4 a.m. ET) and defending champion Italy vs. Argentina (11 a.m. ET). Germany will face the Netherlands in Friday's semifinal after the Dutch sent Rafael Nadal into retirement with a 2-1 victory over Spain yesterday.
You can watch every Davis Cup tie live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Here's the streaming schedule and here are the latest results. | | |  | Denis Shapovalov and the Canadian men's tennis team were eliminated in the Davis Cup quarterfinals today by Germany. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images for ITF)
| | | Quickly…
| | | Some other things to know:
1. The Canadian men's soccer team took care of business.
Copa America revelation Jacob Shaffelburg scored twice and Jonathan David continued his outstanding play with a goal of his own as Canada routed tiny Suriname 3-0 last night in Toronto to wrap up a 4-0 aggregate win in their two-leg CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal.
The victory gives Canada a spot in the four-team Nations League Finals in Los Angles in March and a berth in next summer's Gold Cup. The Canadians will be joined in the Nations League Finals by the United States, Panama and Mexico, which rallied from a 2-0 loss in Honduras to win 4-0 at home last night.
Canada missed the Finals last year by blowing a 3-1 lead in the final half of its quarterfinal against Jamaica. That forced the Canadians to win a one-game playoff against Trinidad and Tobago to qualify for last summer's Copa America, where their run to the semifinals surely boosted the team's confidence for the upcoming 2026 World Cup.
Another reason Canada can feel good about its outlook for 2026 is David, who is emerging as one of the best young forwards in the world. The 24-year-old has seven goals in 11 league matches this season for his French club, Lille, and is tied for second in the Champions League with four goals. With the national team, David has now scored or assisted on eight of Canada's 12 goals since Jesse Marsch took over as head coach last May, and Marsch has called him "the smartest player I've ever coached." Here's more on David's rise from Chris Jones.
2. The PWHL pre-season is underway.
Centralized training camps opened today in Toronto (where the hometown Sceptres are joined by the defending champion Minnesota Frost and the New York Sirens) and Montreal (where the Victoire are with the Ottawa Charge and the Boston Fleet).
Each site is hosting one pre-season game this afternoon, Thursday and Friday before final roster cuts are due on Nov. 27. The regular season begins Nov. 30. Today, the league completed its schedule of large-capacity neutral-site games by announcing Edmonton's Rogers Place (home of the Oilers) will host Toronto and Ottawa on Feb. 16.
As the PWHL prepares to launch its second season, here's a burning question for all six teams from CBC Sports' Karissa Donkin.
In other hockey news, the struggling Boston Bruins fired head coach Jim Montgomery shortly after our publish time yesterday. Montgomery, 55, had been part of the Bruins' staff since 2014 and won the NHL coach of the year award in 2022-23 after guiding the team to a record-setting 65-12-5 regular season. But Boston is a disappointing 8-9-3 this season and is tied for the second-worst goal differential in the league.
3. Another undefeated team went down.
It's been a rough couple days for teams with a zero at the end of their record. On Sunday, 9-0 Kansas City lost to Buffalo, handing the NFL's last unbeaten team its first defeat since last Christmas (when they lost to the Raiders, somehow). Last night, the 15-0 Cleveland Cavaliers suffered their first loss of the season, falling 120-117 to the NBA-champion Boston Celtics.
The only team in NBA history with a longer win streak to open a season is the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors. They won 24 in a row before finishing 73-9 to break the league record for most victories in a season.
| | | That's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow.
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