A cramping victim at the US Open one too many times, Vasek Pospisil vows to find solutions

NEW YORK – Vasek Pospisil's work space on Court 7 Monday night in New York wasn't exactly neat and tidy as it was.

As habitually heavy sweater, a humid day like this one was always going to produce a mass of soaking-wet shirts, dripping wristbands and the remains of various hydration solutions.

But this time, the humidity got to the 25-year-old Canadian on every level – in his body, and in his mind.

In a match that, given reasonable form, he would fully expect to win after a slow start, first the racquet went flying into the net. Then, the massive tennis bag was tossed. Then, a water bottle went flying into the court.

It's quite unlike Pospisil to lose it that way. But the cramps were coming, there was nothing he could do about it, and he pretty much knew he was going to lose the match – which he did, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (0), 6-0, 6-1 to Andreas Haider Maurer of Austria, a noted hothead who, on this night, pretty much kept his cool.

At 0-3, love-30 in the fourth set, the cramps hit for real.

Referee supervisor Lars Graff, who was courtside, gave Pospisil two choices: play on (given he was lying in agony on the court at that point, a series of time violations would have kicked in as long as he delayed play anyway), or forfeit the two points remaining in that game and the four points on Haider Maurer's next service game, in order to get back to his chair and get treatment from the physio.

Wisely, he chose the latter, his second and, by the rules, final treatment for the same condition. Even though the cramps subsided, Pospisil still found himself exhausted, really sore in the affected areas, and definitely not in the frame of mind that made a comeback possible.

So, his US Open singles adventure, which might have ended anyway after a matchup with No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic in the second round, is done.

It's not the result that enraged Pospisil as much as the manner in which it went down. He has already tried many avenues to deal with the excessive sweating and the resulting trauma when the weather doesn't cooperate, most of them nutritional in nature. But he vowed he will try even harder this off-season to find a solution.

"Next year, we won't be talking about this, I hope," he added.

A little later on in the evening, Rafael Nadal, the two-time champion, also had issues with excessive sweating and the physical consequences, attributing a drop in form in the third set of his four-set victory over teenager Borna Coris to some stomach pains related to the conditions.

During Pospisil's match, he was regularly yelling at his team, coach Frédéric Fontang and physio Andres Vial, about the "same **%$*%%#ing thing" happening every year. The language also was uncharacterically salty from the congenial Canadian, at least on court.  And he was extremely unhappy about some of the line calls, some perhaps justified, others more the result of his general state of being.

At the same time, as he was about to launch on a tirade directed at chair umpire Mariana Alves because of a bad call he felt he'd received – on the far sideline, the line an umpire is least likely to overrule – he began, stopped, and helpfully advised and apologized in advance to Haider Maurer for the disruption of play on the Austrian's service game that was to come.

Pospisil felt the wave coming at the end of the third set –  left quad, hamstring, calf, right quad and calf, sometimes the right forearm, the hip flexor.  

He knows the signs of impending disaster; it's the third consecutive year the Canadian has had big problems with the New York humidity. Last year, during a five-setter against the Italian Simone Bolelli, he didn't cramp, but he felt the same issues. Two years ago, in a first-round match against No. 134-ranked Rogerio Dutra Silva of Brazil, he won the first two sets easily and ended up losing it, 12-10 in the fifth-set tiebreaker, while suffering from the humidity.

Monday night, he could already feel he was getting dehydrated in the second set, as much as he tried to replenish. He had some issues breathing and he felt very sluggish. He knew it was coming, and he was helpless to stop it.

All he could do when it was over was pick up his junk, and head back to the locker room to re-assess.

Pospisil still has the doubles with American partner Jack Sock.

In the meantime, chair umpire Alves docked him a penalty point for the bag-tossing tirade. Supervisor Graff whipped out his cell phone and snapped a photo of the resulting detritus. We'll see if there is any more fallout.