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Vasek Pospisil survives the Wimbledon heat, and a tough qualifier, to move into the second round
WIMBLEDON - Vasek Pospisil’s career record in five-set matches had been terrible until this season.
And his issues with hot, steamy conditions such as those that descended upon Wimbledon Tuesday are longstanding.
So even though the Canadian’s first-round opponent was a qualifier, the stage was set for a struggle.
Pospisil never went into full-out cramping mode, but the pre-conditions were there in his left quad, calf, and upper hamstring – and even in his pectoral – before he finally started feeling better in the fifth and pulled out a win over France’s Vincent Millot, ranked No. 213, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-3.
“Maybe in terms of the way I was feeling physically, it was a tough one. It didn’t have to be as tough as it was, if I’d played the right way and played a little better,” he said. “It was the first round, so definitely some tension and trying to get some confidence.”
After winning his first-ever five-set match in Davis Cup in 2011, Pospisil proceeded to lose his next five – until this year’s Australian Open, when he came back from two sets to one down to defeat American Sam Querrey in the first round. This makes it two straight.
Set points in the third set went unclaimed by the Canadian, and suddenly Millot was standing there in the fourth, prepared to serve to go up 5-2. Pospisil caught up, but a little later he was standing at the service line late in the fourth set, needing to hold his serve, or it would have been all over.
He held, and with the help of some Millot errors, won the fourth-set tiebreak.
He broke serve to open the fifth and deciding set and more or less rolled from there.
It very nearly was a second Canadian upset on the day, after Genie Bouchard, also facing a qualifier, was defeated a few courts over.
“Just good that I stayed in there, waited for my chance and didn’t throw in the towel,” Pospisil said. “The conditions were tough, I felt like it was pretty humid on the grass.”
Pospisil was asked whether the few days he had to stay off court to deal with a back spasm last week affected his training, and therefore his conditioning for the five-setter.
But the Canadian said he’d actually been putting in quite a bit of volume on the practice court, save for those few days.
His issues playing in the heat are fairly well-known, and not uncommon for people who, as Pospisil does, suffer from rosacea. The grandmas may love those rosy cheeks, but they go hand in hand with a low tolerance for the heat.
His efforts to address it have been fairly successful, he hadn’t cramped the last two years until Tuesday.
Pospisil’s recovery reportedly had Millot telling some of the French media that the Canadian was a good actor.
“I was aggravated, because he was in pain when he lost points and he ran like a rabbit when he won them,” Millot told the French media. “No doubt he was hurting, but he didn’t have to make such a big drama about it.”
“That’s nice,” Pospisil replied, meaning, “That’s really not nice at all.”
“If he felt the way I was feeling I don’t think he would say that; he’d be even more disappointed that he didn’t win this match. He missed an opportunity, because I was feeling at 60 per cent on the court,” Pospisil said. “Having said that, in the fifth set I realized it was the last set, I was going all-in, all my energy, and actually felt physically better in that set than during the match.
“I don’t know why, maybe it was less humid. I drank three bottles of electrolytes. There was no way I should have won the fourth set. I was not feeling good at all,” he added.
Pospisil will play No. 30 seed Fabio Fognini of Italy in the second round on Thursday.
