Isn't it Raonic?

For a country of its size, Canada produces an embarrassingly small number of sports stars capable of making an impact on the international stage.  Hockey no longer dominates public and media attention in the way it used to, thanks to the arrival in Toronto of NBA basketball (the Raptors) and American League baseball (the Blue Jays).  In other sports, however, especially those focused on individual achievement such as golf, tennis, swimming or track and field, the media pay next to no attention unless a Canadian pops up and notches a victory.  Then it's blanket coverage, for at least a day or two.

Look back to 2016 and there were two Canadians making their mark in a big way.  At the Rio Olympics, 17-year-old swimmer Penny Oleksiak turned in a performance for the ages, including a gold medal and a couple of bronzes.  The press went wild, interviewing everyone from her parents to the guy who cleans the pool where she trains.  Years of achievement and glory beckoned.  This year? Not so much.  At the recent world championships, Oleksiak swam creditably but didn't win anything of note.  As a result, she and her sport barely rated a wire service column on the inside pages of the sports section.

The year 2016 was also a breakthrough year for tennis star Milos Raonic, who broke into the world top ten rankings and got to the finals at Wimbledon, where he was handily beaten by Andy Murray.  This year? Again, not so much. Raonic has been plagued by injuries, has played little and won even less, with the result that the media coverage has largely dried up.

But what's this??  In the past week a "new" Canadian star has appeared in the tennis firmament: 18-year-old Denis Shapovalov.  In a tournament in Montreal, Shapovalov made it all the way to the semi-finals, disposing of both Juan Martin del Potro and Rafael Nadal along the way.  Cue, once again, the media frenzy, with reporters who had never heard of him until this week rushing to laud him.  This article from the Toronto Star will give you the tone.  Not content with asserting that "Shapovalov clearly has our undivided attention", the columnist can't resist taking multiple swipes at poor Raonic, last year's man:

"Raonic just can’t stay healthy for more than a few months at a time, and bombed out of this Rogers Cup early with a wrist problem. His health has been a significant part of the reason he’s so far not been able to win one of the big tournaments in his sport, either a Grand Slam event or a Masters-level tournament."

Yeah, what a loser, eh?  And talking of which, let's take a look at Eugenie Bouchard, the media cynosure of 2015, when she too reached a Wimbledon final.  It's all gone wrong since then: multiple coaches, a lawsuit against the US tennis association, demoralizing first-round losses week after week and, at times, an evident loss of interest in her chosen sport.

This past week, as Shapovalov was burning up the courts in Montreal, Bouchard yet again lost badly in the first round of a tournament in Toronto.  Evidently disheartened, she was unwise enough at her post-match press conference to suggest that it would be a relief to let someone else carry the pressure of being "Canada's tennis sweetheart".  Needless to say this did not go down well with the media, who are even quicker to pile in on a loser than they are to latch onto a winner.  Bouchard's road back to the top has been growing narrower for a while; with the media panting for her to fail, it may now be next to impossible.

So, good luck Denis Shapovalov.  I don't mean on the court -- you've already shown you can handle the world's best.  It's the local media you have to beware of.