Stray knees, stress fractures and mental anguish. Oh Canada.

It may be a little hard to remember, with all the injuries, career detours and puzzling losses, but there was a time when anything seemed possible for Canadian tennis.

Every time a tennis fan looked up, it seemed like another hugely talented or spirited Canadian had made it to a Grand Slam final. Bianca Andreescu even won one, beating Serena Williams in the 2019 US Open when she was still a teenager, playing with a style so creative it left tennis aesthetes salivating.

Lately, with all the bad knees (Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime), stress fractures (Leylah Fernandez), and the mental pain (Milos Raonic and Andreescu) that so many players are grappling with these days, even Fernandez’s unlikely run to the 2021 U.S. Open final can feel like it was a long time ago.

And then there was a day like Wednesday at Wimbledon, when the rain finally stopped long enough to play tennis outside, allowing Shapovalov and Raonic to show why there had been such a fuss in the first place. Both came back from a set down to win in four sets, giving Shapovalov a chance to reminisce about what it had meant to him to be a junior player from a country best known for its prowess in sports with ice (hockey and curling) and watching Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard go almost all the way on the Wimbledon grass.

“It really made me and Felix believe that it is possible as a Canadian,” said Shapovalov, after beating Radu Albot of Moldova 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 in a game that started on Monday. ‘And I’m sure the generations, you know, follow me, Felix, Bianca. Leylah, I’m sure there’s a lot more belief in the country that it’s possible even when the country is cold or mostly winter.”

Apparently the Canadians lacked the string of champions that Sweden, hardly a temperate country, produced in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, such as Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg.

Shapovalov and Raonic, who played and won his first Grand Slam match in two and a half years on Monday, defeated Austria’s Denis Novak 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-1, will get back to it on thursday. Both men play second round matches, just like Fernandez. Andreescu will also be there and will finally play her first round match against Hungary’s Anna Bondar.

Auger-Aliassime, who has been battling a sore knee all year, lost in the first round to the All England Club for the second consecutive year. The nagging injury and final loss count as major disappointments for Auger-Aliassime, who broke out in his late teens and whose powerful serve and movement should allow him to excel on grass.

But a Wimbledon schedule full of Canadians is what the country’s top athletes were after as they set out to make Canada a top-level tennis country nearly 20 years ago. Aside from long, cold winters, Canada seemed to have everything a country needed to achieve great things in tennis: wealth, diversity, and a commitment to spending money building facilities and importing top coaches.

It built a tennis center in Montreal and satellite facilities in other major cities and began focusing on early childhood and teen development. It hired Louis Borfiga, a leading French tennis genius who was Borg’s batting partner, to oversee the player’s development.

Blessed with the good fortune of players with natural talent and parents willing to support it, Canada had Bouchard and Raonic rolling in the mid-2010s and Shapovalov, Andreescu and Auger-Aliassime were tearing up the junior rankings, with Fernandez not far behind.

The success – last year Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime led Canada to its first Davis Cup title – and the struggles have led to camaraderie among the players. They know when the others are playing, even if they are not in the same tournament.

“I’m guilty of following the results of all my fellow Canadians,” said Fernandez, who just a few years ago recalled Auger-Aliassime training a few lanes away in Montreal and thought, “Oh, this is inspiring .”

When Fernandez was injured last year, one of the first text messages she received was from Andreescu, who has seemingly been battling a variety of ailments since winning the 2019 US Open. Andreescu told Fernandez that she was there for her whatever she needed and that Fernandez was going through a rough time but would get through it.

Earlier this year, when Andreescu rolled her ankle and suffered a seemingly devastating injury during the Miami Open, Fernandez immediately sent support back. “I was like ‘Bianca, you’re strong, you’re coming back, you’re a great tennis player and a great person.'”

On Wednesday, Shapovalov and Raonic found each other in the locker room, trying to deal with the rain delays that have disrupted the tournament all week.

Raonic said he had forgotten about his old routine because it had been so long since he had dealt with something like this. At first he tried to keep moving to keep loose, but then thought maybe he was burning too much energy.

He sat down with Shapovalov, who passed the time with his coach by answering animal trivia questions. Raonic jumped into the game and said everyone was entertained to learn which sea creature can breathe through its butt. (Turtle). There was also a spirited debate about the deadly power of a mosquito versus that of sharks. Shapovalov firmly believed that sharks are scarier than a malaria-carrying insect.

Finally, the rain subsided along with the zoology debate. Then it was time for Raonic to get back on the field and get the kind of win that once happened all the time, exhausting Novak with his explosive serve and big forehand. Later in the afternoon, when Shapovalov found his rhythm on those smooth, graceful strokes, Albot didn’t stand a chance.

As a symbol of how weak Canada’s tennis effort has become, both Shapovalov and Raonic could easily not have been at the All England Club this year.

Shapovalov has been limping off and on in recent months and then had to cut short his training sessions on grass the pain became too intense.

Raonic said his injury struggles in recent years had made him accept the idea that his life had begun after tennis. But he drove past a tennis court near his home in the Bahamas every day, or watched tennis on television while he worked out at a local gym and thought he might as well give it another shot.

On Wednesday, he said he was annoyed with himself for not enjoying the moment anymore, back at the All England Club, playing in the Grand Slam where he had his greatest success and helped make Canada believe. In his words, it was easy to discover a bigger message about the often fleeting nature of success, in a single day or over an era.

“You just get caught up in the whole process of competing and trying to find a way to win and that passes very quickly,” he said. “Then you can’t really enjoy the game.”