Welcome Matt: It's been a disappointing year for Canadian soccer and tennis

Over to you, basketball and golf. The last decade of Canadian sport has seen the rise of golf, tennis, soccer, and basketball, but after the last year, two of those sports aren’t delivering.

In what’s left of this summer, golfers on the PGA and LPGA tours, as well as our men’s basketball team at the FIBA World Cup, are left to redeem the country’s sporting performance in this quartet.

It’s been a big disappointment on the soccer pitch where Canada was the worst team at the men’s World Cup and had to take solace in the moral victory of scoring a goal, not getting a result.

The women’s soccer team fared not much better this month in Australia. Eliminated at the group stage with a lowly draw against Nigeria, falling short of expectations and potential.

Worse yet, players from both program have openly warred with their governing body, Canada Soccer, with headlines peppering every week and a lack of finances blamed for a lack of preparation prior to the World Cup failures.

#CMNSTPA August 18th Update pic.twitter.com/v7AWh38uke

— CMNSTPA (@cmnstpa) August 18, 2023

Tennis has also struggled.

We keep waiting for Félix Auger-Aliassime or Dennis Shapovalov to make a breakthrough. Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez can’t recapture the form that got them into finals at the US Open.

Andreescu, the 2019 Open champion, is forever hurt and may miss Flushing Meadows this month with bad back. Shapovalov has already withdrawn.

Barring another shocker, 2023 will not be the year that Canadian tennis takes the next step.

That leaves our men’s basketball team, the second choice to win the World Cup in Asia this month. Canada opens the proceedings against France next Friday, after a good pre-tournament campaign of four wins in its first five games, including a victory over No. 1 ranked Spain.

The team is teeming with NBA talent, and ready to shed the underachiever label that has dogged it for more than a decade.

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In golf, four Canadians are competing at the BMW Championship this weekend, reserved for the top 50 players on the PGA Tour. That’s more than any other country other than the US.

Nick Taylor scored a win for the ages at the RBC Canadian Open, while Surrey’s Adam Svensson, Mackenzie Hughes, and Corey Conners also won events. It’s a big ask for one of them to win the tour championship, but this year in men’s golf has already been a smashing success.

Brooke Henderson won on the LPGA Tour this year, too. And if she wins next week at the CPKC Women’s Open at Shaughnessy, the two Canadian Open titles will reside in Canadian hands.

So there are still Canadian athletes and teams worth watching before the summer is out, and still a chance to take big steps forwards in sports that are on the rise.

Pity about tennis and soccer.