Big Giant Heads Lift Canada to Victory in the Davis Cup in Halifax

Few tennis fans in Canada thought that the Canadian Davis Cup team would lose to lowly regarded Colombia in the Davis Cup playoffs in Halifax. However, those hard-core fans knew that it was not an open and shut case. Colombia has an extremely talented doubles team that has played together for at least three years (not only in Davis Cup, but on the regular ATP Tour). Santiago Giraldo is also a talented singles player. These factors played in the back of the fans minds as Canada met Colombia in Halifax.

As it turned out, Colombia indeed won the doubles and in the end, it wasn’t even close in the live singles rubbers, as Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil both sealed the deal for Canada in straight set wins. I thought Giraldo would have put up more of a fight in his match with Pospisil to make the tie interesting, but the atmosphere, fans, arena and host city all combined to give Pospisil the edge and the confidence.

Once again, the big giant heads (first seen in Vancouver in 2013 vs. Spain) made an appearance in Halifax from the offices of Tennis Canada. They are instantly recognizable and a crowd favourite. Without them (and maybe the noise from the buckets from the cheering section), the tie would have been far less interesting and the crowd would not have gotten into the matches as much as they did without them. At the end of 2013, I predicted that this big giant head idea would morph into something bigger and make appearances at other Davis Cup matches. That, so far, hasn’t materialized and it seems that Canada has an unofficial patent on the big giant heads idea. It’s a great marketing tool.

Halifax was a great host city. I was proud of them for getting behind the Canadian Davis Cup team, tennis and even more proud to be from Nova Scotia. I just wish I could have been there in person. Next up, Japan in Canada for the first round of the World Group – the fourth year in a row that Canada has been in the prestigious top 16 nations group. That is unprecedented – history making really, much like 2014 has already been for Canadian tennis. Also unprecedented is both the men’s and women’s teams in the top tier of tennis’ elite team competitions at the same time – the men in Davis Cup’s World Group and the women in the Federation Cup’s World Group.