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Canada will have home-court advantage in its bid to stay among the worlds best tennis countries. Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys . Canada will host Colombia in a Sept. 12-14 tie, with the winner starting Davis Cup play in the World Group next year. The location of the best-of-five competition has yet to be announced, but hosting the tie is a definite advantage for Canada, says the team captain. "The number one thing I think we were hoping for was to play at home," Martin Larendeau said Tuesday on a conference call. "Weve seen over the last few years when we play at home, our odds increase dramatically." Canada beat both Spain and Italy indoors in Vancouver last year to reach the semifinals for the first time in history before bowing out to Serbia. The Davis Cup, founded in 1900, is the touted as the largest annual international team competition in sport with 122 countries participating in 2014. A tie consists of two singles matches on the first day, a doubles match on Day 2 and concludes with a pair of singles matches on the third day. The ascension of Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., and Vasek Pospisil of Vancouver in mens singles, as well as the work of tireless and decorated doubles veteran Daniel Nestor of Toronto, turned Canada into a consistent Davis Cup threat in recent years. Canada started this years Davis Cup in the World Group for a third straight year. Beset by injuries, however, Canada lost 4-1 to Japan in Tokyo in February. Raonic and Pospisil didnt play at all and Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., retired in the second set of a singles match on the final day because of a stomach injury. So Japan advanced to the quarter-finals, while Canada must win the playoff versus Colombia to start 2015 in the World Group again. Canada fell 4-1 to Colombia in Bogota the last time the two countries met in 2010. Because that tie was played on the road, its Canadas turn to host the South Americans. The Canadians need to leverage a friendly, familiar venue into a victory, lest they drop into Americas Group 1 qualifying matches next year. "I dont think anybody wants to go back to Group 1, where we would have to face a lot of South Americans teams and away ties and stuff," Larendeau said. "We have to make the most of this window to play a South American team at home. Everyone is keen on us staying in the World Group. "Our reference for us is going to be the matches last February and last April when we played at home. I think its going to bring a lot of good feelings back to play at home and hopefully that will put the guys in a productive frame of mind." Tennis Canada will announce the location at a later date. Larendeau says he and the athletes will have some input into the location, but not the final say. "The good thing about playing in September is we have options to play indoors or outdoors. Its something we dont have when we play in February or even April," the Laurendeau said. "We need the players feedback to see how they think theyre going to match up in altitude, sea level, indoors, outdoors. The players and myself have a bit of a say on where wed like to play, but it doesnt come down to that. "Theres executive decisions and theres also a marketplace, theres also promoting the game in cities or in areas that are not able to see a lot of tennis. Theres a lot of factors that go in, but our job is to come up to the board of directors and president and say these are the conditions wed like to play in and lets work on the venue now." Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Montreal are previous Canadian host cities of World Group ties. Canada is seeded No. 8, while Colombia is ranked No. 26 in Davis Cup. Raonic is currently No. 11 in ATP mens singles and Pospisil is 28th. Colombia doesnt have a singles player in the worlds top 50, but the doubles team of Juan-Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah is formidable. That duo lost the final of last months Sony Open to world No. 1 Bob and Mike Bryan of the U.S. "I think Colombia is a very tough team," Larendeau said. "They have a lot of depth, they have an excellent doubles team and they have a lot of experience in singles play." Cheap Adidas Panthers Jerseys . The 26-year-old Regina native teamed up with Denny Morrison and Mathieu Giroux to win gold in 2010. Makowsky also was 13th in the 5,000 metres and 19th in the 1,500m in Vancouver. He also represented Canada at the 2014 Games in Sochi, helping the pursuit team finish fourth and finishing 28th in the 1,500. Cheap Panthers Jerseys China . Not that Durant cared. The only streak he cares about is still intact. http://www.cheapfloridapanthersjerseys.com/ .The seventh-seeded Raonic was scheduled to play U.S. Open finalist Kei Nishikori of Japan, but was replaced in the Group B pool by Spanish substitute David Ferrer.Raonic, who was 0-2 at the year-end event, said he suffered the injury late in the first set of Tuesdays 6-3, 7-6 loss to Murray.Flames visit Preds in battle between low-scoring teams (SportsNetwork.com) - The Calgary Flames were again involved in a game in which a team was held scoreless, only this time they came out on the winning side. For one night, continued scoring issues didnt cost the Flames and theyll aim to make it back-to-back wins on Tuesday night when they visit the Nashville Predators. Calgary went into Mondays encounter with the Carolina Hurricanes having been outscored 13-1 over a three-game slide and 26-6 over their previous eight games, a span in which it had been shut out five times while going 1-7-0. The Flames finally found a way to get around those scoring woes by keeping the Hurricanes off the board in a 2-0 win. Karri Ramo stopped all 23 shots he faced for his first NHL shutout. Ramo played 48 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning from 2006-09 and then spent the next four seasons in Russia before the Flames took a chance on the 27- year-old Finn in the offseason. He posted 18 whitewashes for Avangard Omsk in the Kontinental Hockey League. Mikael Backlund and Sean Monahan scored the goals as the Flames won despite Mike Cammalleri sitting out with a concussion suffered in Saturdays loss to Pittsburgh. "It was probably our best team effort of the season," Calgary head coach Bob Hartley said. "Its a feel-good story, thats for sure. We had an answer for their pressure. We were on our toes, had great support. Guys were going short (shifts), so we had plenty of energy. We were on a mission."