After two years and a Wimbledon title, Pospisock no longer a thing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – There is Vasek Pospisil. And there is Jack Sock.

But as of now, Pospisock is pretty much history. Along with the hashtags.

The two began their doubles partnership with a surprise run to the 2014 Wimbledon title but after a disappointing effort at this year’s Wimbledon, where they lost in the third round to the French team of Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in five sets after being up two sets to one, the honeymoon period was officially over.

“Pospisock, moving forward, will be scarce,” Pospisil confirmed to Eh Game. Although we may still play here and there.”

For the immediate future, Pospisil will have a familiar face on the same side of the net.

One Daniel Nestor.

Here’s what the Canadian doubles legend had to say about it.

As Nestor mentions in the interview, in addition to the Rogers Cup in Toronto and the Olympics, the two will also play Cincinnati together the week after that.

Another factor, of course, is Pospisil’s drop in rankings fortunes after failing to defend his quarter-final Wimbledon singles effort from a year ago. Barely in the top 100 at the moment (and the last direct entry into the US Open singles draw), the 26-year-old is going to have to adjust his schedule to play smaller tournaments and/or the qualifying at the larger ones. But it will be more difficult to set that schedule far ahead of time because it will be more rankings-dependent than had been the case this year.

Pospisock's results have actually been pretty good – they reached the Indian Wells final this year, losing to the Wimbledon champions Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert. At the French Open and Wimbledon, they lost to Benneteau and Roger-Vasselin, a top-calibre team that have been dangerous floaters in draws this season because of Benneteau’s long injury absence and subsequent rankings drop; they reached the Wimbledon final before losing to their countrymen. Pospisil and Sock also reached the final on clay in Rome, where they lost a tight one to Bob and Mike Bryan. But there were some early losses as well.

Even for two singles players who team up for doubles, there’s always a shelf life to a team when one of the players cares more than the other. That seems to be the case here.

Sock, currently ranked No. 26 in singles, is playing with countryman Steve Johnson this week in Washington D.C. (the two will team up at the Olympics) while Pospisil, who stayed in town for several days for some intense practice after losing a tough one in the first round of singles, did not play doubles in D.C.

Sock and Johnson upset the No. 1 seeds and Olympic medal hopefuls, Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares of Brazil, in the first round.

Nestor is in the semi-finals with Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin.