Canada’s better known for ice hockey, Labatt’s beer and bone-chilling winters than it is for tennis, but there’s a 22-year-old in Bermuda this week who might just end up changing that perception.

The XL Bermuda Open’s number five seed Frank Dancevic from Niagara Falls stormed to victory over number two seed Alexander Peya yesterday, ensuring the tournament’s two top-ranked players will not contest the semi-final clashes which begin today at the Coral Beach Club.

World number 70 Sam Querrey lost in three sets to Austrian Daniel Koellerer on Thursday, though Dancevic needed only two to dispose of a lacklustre Peya 6-3, 6-3.

The long-haired Canadian number one has already represented his country in the Davis Cup for the last five years and boasts career singles wins over the likes of Nikolay Davydenko and Greg Rusedski.

And he used all that experience to tremendous effect yesterday, showing his better-ranked opponent little respect as he went on the attack from the outset — pounding his groundstrokes deep into the opposing court and advancing to net whenever the opportunity presented itself.

It was an onslaught Peya ought to have countered, though for some reason the Austrian just couldn’t get going at any stage — missing far too many first serves and making countless unforced errors while well-placed in the rallies.

Dancevic wasn’t complaining about such charity, however, and said afterwards he was extremely happy with the way he’s playing.

“I’ve got better and better as the week has gone on,” he said.

“I’d never played him before so I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest, other than that as a top-100 player, he was bound to be decent.

“I got off to a little bit of a slow start, and I then just decided that I had to step it up and look to play my shots and be aggressive. And in the end it worked out well.

“I’ve been playing well all year really but have been getting some very tough draws. So, so far I haven’t got too many wins under my belt this year so it’s nice to finally pull one off against a quality opponent.”

Dancevic now moves on to play his friend and doubles partner Dusan Vemic of Serbia in today’s semi, with the latter taking almost exactly an hour to put away the American Bobby Reynolds in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.

The big-serving Vemic was certainly in impressive form, mixing powerful groundstrokes with an assortment of delicate drop shots to leave Reynolds looking perplexed, frustrated and somewhat out of his depth.

In the first quarter-final of the day, meanwhile, the unseeded American Wayne Odenisk put up a brave fight against the third seed Nicolas Devilder of France in the battle of the left-handers, with the former ultimately going down in three, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

The match looked to be going according to the form book in the first set when the 27-year-old Frenchman broke Odenisk just the once to claim it.

But the American came out in the second all-guns blazing, working the taken-aback Devilder all over the court with a fantastic display of weighty hitting off the ground.

However, rather than continuing in the same vein in the decider, Odenisk appeared to tense up and revert to the more cautious approach he had adopted in the first set — a move which ultimately backfired.