Music: {allcanada} Dancevic pulls off big upset in Davis Cup

Friday, February 1, 2013

{allcanada} Dancevic pulls off big upset in Davis Cup

VANCOUVER - Spanish coach Alex Corretja described Frank Dancevic's shocking straight-set victory over Marcel Granollers Friday evening as "perfect tennis," and it would be difficult to argue with him.

Dancevic, considered a heavy underdog, came in to the second rubber of Friday's World Group first-round tie aggressive from the start, continually attacking Granollers with an onslaught of audacious efforts for which the world No. 34 Spaniard had no answer, despite being 132 ranks above him in the ATP rankings.

"It's definitely one of the best matches of my career," Dancevic said at the University of British Columbia's Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre following his match. "He's not an easy player to play. He throws you off with his game style. He doesn't make many unforced errors -- you have to go after him. To win a point against him, you have to put a lot of pressure and you have to win the points. He's not going to give you too many points.

"I don't know how many unforced errors he had in the match, but it couldn't have been too many. Most of the points was me earning the points, and I was able to capitalize on that today."

The 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 win gives Canada a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five tie, meaning all Canada has to do is take one match from the remaining three rubbers to pull off a shock upset and advance to the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup World Group for the first time in the country's history.

Spain is a superior team on paper in Saturday's doubles match between Canada's pair of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil and the visitor's pairing of Marc Lopez and Granollers.

On Sunday, Milos Raonic is favoured against Granollers, with Dancevic up against Albert Ramos, who fell to Raonic in Friday's early rubber in four sets 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, in the fifth and final match.

"You never know what Davis Cup can bring out of you," Dancevic said. "Crazy things can happen. To be honest, I was expecting to play well, but I played better than I thought I would play but it's great. We're up 2-0. The bottom line is it's not finished yet, we're up 2-0, but there's a long ways to go.

"It's not time to celebrate right now. We've got to go out there, focus on every point, finish the job and then we can celebrate after. These guys are tough, they've got a great doubles team, and they're going to come back and they're going to come back hard."

Dancevic's words of caution likely come as a result of his coach, Canada captain Martin Laurendeau's experience against Sweden in 1992, when he was part of a Canada team that went 2-0 up on Day 1 before eventually falling 3-2 -- that tie also took place in Vancouver.

"I experienced this feeling 21 years ago against Sweden," Laurendeau said. "Learning from that, the word of advice is to enjoy it…but take it one match at a time.

"With doubles, we know from the time the draw was made that Saturday would be a tough day at the office for whoever would line up, and that's still going to be the case."