Team Canada presented by IGA’s party will have to wait. France stayed alive in the Davis Cup Qualifiers Second Round tie early on Saturday with a straight-set victory in the doubles match to cut the hosts' lead to 2-1 in the best-of-five tie.
Félix Auger-Aliassime and Duncan Chan were looking to complete the sweep and punch Canada’s ticket to the Davis Cup Final 8 in Bologna, Italy, in November as the Canadians entered the day up 2-0 after a pair of singles wins on Friday. But the French team of Benjamin Bonzi and Pierre-Hugues Herbert delivered a clean performance to get the visitors on the board with a 7-6(4), 6-3 win.
For most of the first set, the servers faced little adversity. Just one of the first 11 games went to deuce and there were no break points. The only chance for either pair came right at the end as France served to send the set to a tiebreak at 5-6. At deuce, Herbert flicked a backhand overhead long to put the French down 40-AD, set point for Canada, but he redeemed himself on the following point by putting away almost the same shot to escape.
That break-point save kicked off a run of nine straight points for the French team as they raced out to a 6-0 lead in the tiebreak. The Canadians made it interesting, saving the first four set points to get back to 6-4 but finally a Chan forehand caught the net cord and died on the Canadians’ side to give the first set to France.
Read also: Félix Auger-Aliassime - “I Like to Play for Something Bigger than Myself”
The second set started out in a similar vein as the first, with the servers barely dropping points. That all changed on Chan’s serve at 3-4 when the Canadians really got in trouble for the first time all match. At love-30, Auger-Aliassime could not handle a volley and they went down love-40, the first break points they had faced. Auger-Aliassime saved the first break point with a smash but on the second Bonzi put away a volley to score the first break of the match, setting up his team to serve for it.
Herbert made no mistake closing out the match, holding to 15 with Bonzi finishing it off with a crisp backhand volley.
Auger-Aliassime will now get another crack at clinching Canada’s spot in Bologna when he takes on France’s Arthur Rinderknech in the No. 1 singles match. Rinderknech was stunned by Canada’s Liam Draxl on Friday.
Read also: Elena Rybakina’s Road to WTA World No. 1
CLICK HERE for everything you need to know about the Davis Cup Qualifiers Second Round tie in Quebec City between Canada and France.
Feature Photo: Pascal Ratthe
