The End of Wimbledon Is The Beginning of Canadian Tennis

In sports, an athlete or team makes history because they've accomplished something new. This feat is compared to what has or, usually, what has not happened previously. For fans of any team mired in a prolonged championship drought, this is all common knowledge. They root for something different to happen because if it does, it will feel like the past has been erased, even temporarily.

This is, in many ways, how you could describe the entire history of singles tennis in Canada.

This week at Wimbledon, as Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard continue to carve out their own story as rising stars in the men's and women's game respectively, they've made Canadians realize just how special their accomplishments are.

Bouchard defeated Angelique Kerber in straight sets yesterday to become the first Canadian ever to make the semi-finals at Wimbledon. On the same day, Raonic got past Nick Kyrgios in four sets to reach the semi-finals in the men's draw. The last time a male Canadian tennis player made it this far at Wimbledon was in 1908. That gentleman was Robert Powell.

To have both of these stories align at what is arguably the biggest tournament in the world is an incredible story for Canada. But perhaps the larger point here is that it doesn't feel all that surprising, but rather inevitable given how Raonic and Bouchard have performed in the past. They just happen to be reaching the potential they've teased so many times before.

Bouchard is now the only player on the women's tour to make the semi-finals at all three Grand Slams this season and will be ranked no lower than 8th in the world by the end of this tournament. Raonic has won five career singles titles, and is ranked 9th. Reaching the semi-finals at this Grand Slam represents his best showing to date at a major tournament. Bouchard is 20-years-old, Raonic is 23. These are the ages when tennis players who are primed to do so break through to the next level.

More importantly still than these two individual accomplishments, their runs at the All England Club are likely to impact the talent pool of Canadian tennis players going forward. I've spent most of my life in Canada, and yes, the majority of fans here care about hockey and are known to occasionally indulge in some curling and Canadian football. One local television channel has a hockey variety show called "That's Hockey," and that is understandable, but the sport is so popular there is a spinoff called "That's Hockey 2Nite." I would go on, but you get the point.

Hockey is king in Canada, but as far as participation in other sports goes, there's room for growth elsewhere. Statistics Canada conducted a study in 2005, and determined the most commonly played organized sports among 5-to-14-year-olds to be hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball, swimming, and volleyball. A more recent study released earlier this month showed similar trends. Over the past decade, interest in tennis among the younger generation of Canadians has been minimal.

But every sport needs a tipping point. The crop of Canadian basketball talent in the NBA can be traced back to Vince Carter's rise with the Toronto Raptors. You can find similar explanations for soccer, baseball, and the other sports on the list. But for tennis, there have been no specific players—shout out to Daniel Nestor, who's had an esteemed career playing doubles which holds much less allure to the casual viewer than the singles game—to provide the sort of push that a Vince or Joe Carter did.

Now, Canadian tennis has two.