Canada will cross swords with the Netherlands in the Davis Cup qualifying phase next March, Tennis Canada announced in a statement on Sunday.
The draw for the 2022 season took place in Madrid, as part of the Davis Cup finals.
Canada will therefore face the Netherlands, who will host the match on March 4 and 5, 2022. The choice of surface and venue as well as the roster of teams will be determined at a later date.
It will be a fifth duel in history between the two countries. In the last meeting, in 2018, Canada beat the Netherlands in Toronto.
Canada is currently ranked sixth in the world, with the Netherlands in 20e echelon. The winner of this meeting will advance to the 2022 finals, scheduled for November.
After losing to Spain in the Davis Cup final in 2019, Canada lost many of its headliners in the 2021 competition. lost in the group stage to Sweden and Kazakhstan.
The 2021 finalists, Croatia and the Russian Federation, qualify automatically for the 2022 finals. Two passes were also awarded to Great Britain and Serbia.
A total of 24 countries will compete in the 2022 qualifying phase, with the 12 winners advancing to the Davis Cup finals.
Format changes to be expected
In addition, there will be more host cities and fewer countries involved in the Davis Cup finals next season, in the hopes of increasing spectator interest and ensuring the sustainability of the event, have said the organizers on Sunday.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Kosmos Tennis Group, which host the competition, said four cities will host the group stage from 2022, and another – most likely Abu Dhabi – will handle the knockout rounds.
Madrid had been the sole host city of the Davis Cup for seven days in 2019. This season, Innsbruck, Austria, and Turin, Italy, were added to the host cities for the 11-day competition. The test had not been presented in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Each host city will host one of the four groups in the preliminary round, and the top two countries from each of them will advance to the qualifiers. This year, the winning countries of each of the six groups, in addition to the two best runners-up, continued their way into the qualifiers.
The changes were adopted as organizers attempt to sort out the logistical problems that plagued the first edition of the competition two years ago.
A nomination process will be launched in January for all cities that wish to host the event. These cities will have six weeks to present their project, and a final decision should be taken around mid-March. There will be reserve host cities, in case the host countries do not qualify for the tournament.
With Tales Azzoni, Associated Press