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On the hottest day, Vasek Pospisil survives marathon to reach Australian Open third round
MELBOURNE, Australia – Vasek Pospisil brought 16 fluorescent orange shirts to Court 13 at the Australian Open Thursday for his second-round match against Paolo Lorenzi of Italy.
When it was all done, after three hours and 35 minutes – but only four sets – he had six or seven left.
And he was pacing himself; the 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-3, 6-4 victory could easily have gone to a fifth set. One by one, he shed the shirts, and the entire area around his chair became one big fluorescent orange blur of shirts, caps and wristbands – the detritus of the trade on a trying day.
Pospisil was down a set, and an early break in the second set. He had issues with his hips, and needed a medical timeout to rub down a tight muscle in his back that has been giving him a few issues in recent weeks.
And, most of all, there was the heat.
Pospisil struggles in it. Always. And this was by far the hottest day of the Australian so far; the temperature reached 34C, and the humidity was a lot higher than was forecast.
"I was just hitting the ball, not really thinking too much, just trying to survive game after game, and point after point. I was playing pretty well, obviously not moving nearly as good as I can, and not feeling nearly as fresh as I should. But given the circumstances, I was playing well," he said. "I knew it was going to be warm, but I was really surprised I was sweating a lot more than I was expecting – a lot more than I did last year. (That) was more of an issue than the heat, the combination of the two. I was getting pretty dehydrated, which affects your performance a lot."
In way, Pospisil defeated two opponents, which is probably why he reacted by falling to the court as if he'd won the whole tournament, not just an opportunity to play Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain in the third round.
"I was feeling a lot of different things. It was a tough match. The conditions were tough, but I found a way, somehow," Pospisil said. "At the end of the second set, the cloud cover and the wind actually helped me a lot. It changed things a little bit for me, and helped me win that set.
"I served well, and played pretty well, but it was more of a physical battle than a tennis battle."
Pospisil is now in the third round, after winning two tough matches he might have let slip away a few years ago, when less-than optimal conditions of any kind sometimes left him bereft. He won his first Grand Slam five-setter in the first round against American Sam Querrey. And against Lorenzi, despite his physical issues and despite feeling his movement was compromised by the heat and the various aches and pains, he did what he needed to do – which was to close it out in four sets, and not spin the fifth-set roulette wheel.
He definitely got the worst of it. By the time countryman Adil Shamasdin took the same court for his doubles match less than 90 minutes later, the temperature was down in the low 20s and it felt even cooler than that.
Garcia-Lopez, ranked No. 37 at age 31, is what you'd call a "solid veteran", the type of player who usually gives you full value, but usually loses when he's supposed to. He's ranked higher than Pospisil right now, but it would be hard to argue that he's a better player. He's solid in every department without having any huge weapons, and does have a beauty of a one-handed backhand.
Still ...
"Obviously a good opportunity for both of us. I think he’s a great player and has a lot of experience, but it's better playing him than a lot of other guys I could play in the third round of a Slam – top-10 guys, (Novak) Djokovic, those kinds of guys," said Pospisil, who was due to play eventual champion Stan Wawrinka in the third round a year ago, before having to withdraw with the back issue that crushed the first half of his season.
If he can find a way through Garcia-Lopez, he could well face Wawrinka, now the defending champion, in the fourth round.
