Canada’s cool kids are turning the country’s tennis fortunes

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It won’t be the results that people recall about the tennis week just past – the most compelling in this country’s history. What you’ll remember best is the insult.

Where was Canadian tennis just before Angelique Kerber took her postmatch dig (“Biggest drama queen ever”) at Bianca Andreescu?

The same place it had been for the better part of a decade – hanging off the edge of greatness.

Tennis Canada lives up on the balls of its feet, in a state of perpetual anticipation. That’s hard on the emotional joints. After years of being assured that this one or that one (you know who I’m talking about) was thisclose to figuring it out, you’d begun to lose heart.

Our tennis was becoming like everything else this country does on the international stage – a strong second.

Every once in a while, someone would do something half-interesting, making the dull ache of generalized mediocrity worse.

Andreescu got good headlines for winning the BNP Paribas Open. That was something, finally.

But wins don’t turn you into a star. They make you rich. There’s a difference.

Small moments make stars.

By blowing a gear in public, Kerber – a former world No. 1, a champion of multiple majors and a full-grown adult – put Andreescu in orbit. The German forced people to pick sides, and precious few of them found their way onto hers.

The story was so irresistible in its cattiness that it bled outside tennis, then beyond sport and, for just a moment, into the global conversation.

Kerber circled back on social media a few hours later trying to pretend everyone hadn’t heard what they’d very plainly heard – “Congrats to Bianca.” Every time people tell you pro athletes are sneaky-smart, point them back to that decision.

Andreescu’s reaction was perfect – she pretended ignorance and said nothing. Zen is always the best choice when you already have your opponent on their back.

A SWAT team of Madison Avenue flacks could not have constructed a better reputation-building program. A month ago, nobody had heard of Andreescu. Today, she is one of the four or five biggest names in women’s tennis. Kerber did that for her by losing twice and then throwing a tantrum.

When Andreescu signs her first Rolex deal, she ought to buy Kerber a car. Something Japanese.

Having won the moment, Andreescu didn’t need to win the tournament. That was already a full week, Canadian-tennis wise.

Then Denis Shapovalov (one of the perpetually on-the-edge people) and Félix Auger-Aliassime (still too new to have been tagged an on-the-edger) skidded into the frame.

Since it cannot be metricized, momentum has become a deeply uncool concept in sports. But ask a pro. They all subscribe to the power of signs and portents.

Every one of them believes in their bones that you can train forever and a day, but your time will not come until some other power wills it. That’s why the field of play is the last place people cross themselves in public without prompting eye-rolls.

You’d have to be deep in the anti-momentum ethos not to see some connection between what Andreescu did and how her countrymen followed it up.

Playing at the same tournament and all of a sudden, Félix and Shapo (which would be a decent title for a Jean-Pierre Melville caper film) turned into Roger and Rafa.

As a rule, women’s tennis is kinder to newcomers and outsiders. The only constant over the past decade has been Serena Williams, and that’s no longer a given.

But men’s tennis has an indefatigable, often dreary, consistency. Three guys win the ones that matter. The same five or six competitors dominate every tournament.

Shapovalov has been good before, in spurts. But in recent months, his performance graph line had been going horizontal. After a lot of early excitement, he was returning to the Canadian mean.

Auger-Aliassime last caught general attention when he withdrew from the 2018 U.S. Open with heart palpitations. At the time, there was a vaguely defined, but existential, concern for his career. His short-term goal went from playing well, to just playing.

But over the past week, the pair of them have gone Donkey Kong on the ATP, jumping levels that should take months or years in the space of days.

Auger-Aliassime had a mental, as opposed to physical, breakdown on Friday in the Miami Open semi-final against the human pitching machine, John Isner. The Canadian had the match won twice. He gave it back both times.

Isner – a born loser who has turned his sad-sackedness into a superpower – survived, rather than won. Once it ended, he had the decency not to celebrate the win. Isner is simultaneously a great American and an atrociously unwatchable tennis player. He won 7-6 (3) 7-6 (4).

Shapovalov met Roger Federer in the night semi-final, with the Swiss ace winning 6-2, 6-4. So no Canadians in the Miami Open final.

But it was Auger-Aliassime’s coming-out week. He has been displaying a stunningly complete game. And he’s only 18.

The idea of him a little bit bigger, with a little more cunning and a little bit better serve – all things that will happen in short order – is mind-boggling. He is a future world No. 1. If some gambling house is willing to make that prop bet, I’ll skip a mortgage payment to wager on it.

Immediately after spending days gushing over Andreescu, the tennis world switched seamlessly to fitting the royal garments on Auger-Aliassime.

Even the Brits – whose tennis xenophobia streak runs a mile wide – were bending the knee.

Canada has been at tennis for a while. But Canada has never been interesting at tennis. No foreigner has ever said, “Turn on the TV. That Canadian is playing.”

It’s been five years since Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard turned tennis into a big deal in this country. It seems like 15.

But then three Canadian kids and one German who should’ve known better turned it into something better than that. The word might be ‘chic’.

In just a few days, Canada has gone from tennis’s yearbook club into the cool kids everyone else hates a little, but still wants to be.