What do you do when you watch your little brother getting heckled on TV during a tennis match?
If you’re Petr Pospisil, you go to great lengths to level the playing field.
Vasek Pospisil’s older brother is the ringleader behind the red and white army that livens up Canada’s Davis Cup matches.
The group’s grown to 70 strong for this weekend’s World Group tie against Japan at UBC’s Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
They’re impossible to miss — decked out in Canadian colours, waving flags and giant cutouts of players’ heads, playing plastic trumpets and singing songs inspired by the Southsiders supporters group from Whitecaps games.
“Canadians are very nice and polite,” says Petr, a 31-year-old teacher. “It’s a good trait, but not for sport.
“Part of our goal is to break that (reputation). Davis Cup is the World Cup for tennis.”
Seeing how Davis Cup crowds in Ecuador and Israel were treating Vasek and the Canadian team in 2011, Petr was inspired to act, along with his brother Tom and some close friends.
The next summer they showed up at the Odlum Brown VanOpen at the posh Hollyburn Country Club in West Vancouver. Not exactly the right setting for rabid patriotism and bleacher-stomping — “I thought we were going to get thrown out,” Petr says — but a promising start.
Hector MacKay-Dunn, one of B.C.’s representatives on Tennis Canada’s board, loved it. He encouraged them to do the same at Davis Cup and they worked with the federation to block off a section of seats for the France tie at UBC.
They’ve learned since then what goes and what doesn’t in Davis Cup.
When France’s top player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, missed a forehand, one member of the army stood up in the quiet stadium and informed Tsonga that “You’ve got to cock your wrist back and follow through — low to high.”
Petr’s particularly fond of that moment because he said the heckler in question didn’t know much about tennis.
Against Italy in 2013, one fan was kicked out of the Doug for yelling “Fognini, you’re soft!” before the Italian’s second serve, which is about the nicest thing a Canadian is going to hear at an away tie.
But striking a balance between boisterous support and sportsmanship is important to the group — they are Canadian after all. Newbies are informed of the basic rules:
1. Must wear red;
2. Don’t be late or leave early;
3. If Canada is losing, you get louder;
4. No yelling during points or between serves;
5. No racism, sexism, etc.
“We try to keep it classy,” says Dan Nadir, a former alt rock bandmate of Petr and Tom’s and a longtime Whitecaps fan who brought the Southsiders chants over from B.C. Place.
“You try to control everybody, but it’s not always going to happen.”
The army’s even taken its act on the road. A core group — a dozen or so — have cheered on Vasek and Canada in Belgrade, Tokyo and Halifax.
It’s been a fun way to see the world, and Tennis Canada has helped out with tickets to ease the financial burden.
In Serbia, for the World Group semifinal in 2013, they rented an entire floor of a hostel and were given a bonus gift: a police escort.
“Not only an escort from the stadium,” says Dan, “but going up to our hostel and clearing our rooms.
“It’s like, ‘How much do people hate us in this country that they’d be waiting under our bunk beds?’”
Everyone in Serbia, both Petr and Dan note, was really nice to them. The Canadian crew even ventured into the main Serbian cheering section to hand out scarves.
The fans in Tokyo were even nicer. They brought over drinks. And at the Ariake Coliseum that weekend, Dan had an epiphany.
“You could hear a pin drop when we arrived, and we just lit it up,” he says. “And one thing I realized is that our national anthem kind of sounds like a drinking song in comparison to theirs.
“When you’re in that environment, when they’re all looking at you and you’re all in red doing your thing, you’re like, ‘Wow, this is really a robust anthem.’”
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Canada vs. Japan
Friday, 1:45 p.m. — Milos Raonic vs. Tatsuma Ito, followed by Vasek Pospisil vs. Kei Nishikori.
Saturday, 1 p.m. — Doubles: Daniel Nestor/Vasek Pospisil vs. Go Soeda/Yasutaka Uchiyama.
Sunday, 1 p.m. — Milos Raonic vs. Kei Nishikori, followed by Vasek Pospisil vs. Tatsuma Ito.
