Game On

VANCOUVER--Jo-Wilfried Tsonga schooled a very nervous Vasek Pospisil.

Milos Raonic, meanwhile, did what a top player is supposed to do and what he didn't do in Australia last month; facing a player he was supposed to beat, he took him to the woodshed.

Now the intrigue begins.

See, with all the focus on Canada - at least in Canada - slightly forgotten is that France certainly doesn't want to be the victim of a monumental Davis Cup upset this weekend.

These guys haven't won the title since 2001, almost got knocked off by Austria last year and now are being forced to deal with pesky Canada.

So maybe the pressure's a little on them now heading into today's doubles. And maybe, just maybe that might force captain Guy Forget to change his hand a bit.

There seems to be at least the possibility that Forget might pair Tsonga, instead of Julien Benneteau as scheduled, for the doubles today along with veteran Michael Llodra. Forget knows, you see, that if France wins the doubles, there's almost no chance they'll lose this tie.

But if Canada wins. . .

And that's why Canadian captain Martin Laurendeau has to at the very least consider putting Raonic in the dubs as well instead of Pospisi on Saturday.

For starters, Pospisil was obviously demoralized by his very forgettable performance against the powerful Tsonga. He wondered aloud in post-match interviews whether he'd be chosen to play doubles. More to the point, he's just not playing very well at the moment, and hasn't delivered a great deal of elite tennis since his magical Davis Cup performance for Canada in Israel last September.

So the smart move for Laurendeau might be to wheel out Raonic, a strong doubles player himself, and that awesome serve.

Beat the French in doubles, and Canada still has a shot at the huge upset.

The final choices don't have to be announced until noonish on Saturday, with the match set for 2 p.m. local time (5 p.m. in Toronto). But after a day on which the pro-Canada crowd at Thunderbird Arena on the grounds of UBC started to get the feel of what's permissable in Davis Cup and the kind of difference they might be able to make this weekend, expect Saturday and Sunday to be filled with raw emotion along with pounding drums, bugles, thundersticks and manner of things not usually associated with this sport.

While Pospisil wilted, Raonic had the crowd in full roar by the end of his triumph over Benneateau, with his powerful serve hammering out 24 aces and frustrating the overmatched Frenchman every time he got a sniff. What Raonic didn't deliver against Lleyton Hewitt at the Australian Open - a dominant performance - he most surely did deliver against Benneteau.

Hard to say what the lineups will look like on Saturday. But what we can say is two exciting days for Canadian tennis await.