View from our seats

Having attended the last Davis Cup tie hosted by Vancouver back in 1992 vs Sweden, and being an avid tennis player myself, I was looking forward to the past weekend.  The venue this time around, Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at UBC (where many Olympic hockey games were played in 2010) was beautifully transformed for tennis; the stage was set for a great weekend of world class tennis.  A win, no matter how improbable vs supremely talented France, would have put Canada into the quarter finals vs the USA.  Canada got the split they needed in the opening pair of singles matches Friday, but things quickly crumbled in doubles Saturday.  And yesterday, the much-anticipated showdown between Canada’s rising star Milos Raonic and world number six Jo-Wilfried Tsonga never materialized, leaving France to clinch in anti-climactic fashion.  One reporter probably put it best here when he said “it wasn’t the best of ties, it wasn’t the worst of ties.”