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Vasek Pospisil's Australian Open ends with listless loss, but positives remain
MELBOURNE, Australia – It was a tremendous opportunity for both Canadian Vasek Pospisil and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain, both unseeded, to reach the final 16 at the Australian Open.
The veteran Spaniard seized the day better on Saturday afternoon, with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 victory that sets him up for a meeting with defending champion Stan Wawrinka and sends Pospisil home.
"I just didn’t feel good on the court, right from the beginning. I was really struggling with my timing, with my serve, in general it was a really bad start. He came out really sharp. I didn’t. I just got beat, yeah, pretty much," Pospisil said.
There is an ongoing issue with a back muscle, but Pospisil said it likely didn't figure into the outcome. And, he says, it's nothing like the back woes that afflicted him at this tournament a year ago, when he was scheduled to play Wawrinka in the third round but had to withdraw.
Physically, despite two long singles matches bracketing a long first-round doubles match this week, he felt recovered enough.
"Today was maybe a bit of inexperience, rather than anything else. I don’t know what, to be honest, I just wasn't hitting the ball well, came out pretty flat," he said. "I think I’ve done a good job, put a lot of hard work in in the offseason. I feel like I’m fitter.
"I had a little bit of a mini-breakthrough here, I would say, winning two tough matches and getting through them physically and feeling physically fit today. I wasn’t tired, just got beat by a better player on the day today."
The on-court body language was poor from Pospisil. And the language was, at times, defeatist and rather, well, salty. Pospisil even took his cap off early in the match just to change the karma around a little bit.
"I wanted to change something. I felt like I wasn’t myself out there and I thought, 'I’ll take my hat off and maybe I’ll play normal,' " he said, with a rueful smile
The five-set victory over American Sam Querrey in the first round was Pospisil's first at a Grand Slam tournament. The nearly four-win victory over Paolo Lorenzi was also a victory of sorts, a triumph over the hot, humid conditions that have always been Pospisil's Achilles' heel and, perhaps, may always give him trouble.
The Canadian had a heavy schedule planned – five straight weeks beginning in Zagreb, Croatia a week from Monday, followed by Rotterdam, Marseille and Dubai as well as Davis Cup in early March in his hometown of Vancouver. Quickly after that come two big U.S. tournaments, Indian Wells and Miami.
He was, to say the least, a little overbooked. Pospisil said he is pulling out of Zagreb; the back issue, which he insists is minor – and having felt the pain of major a year ago, he's in a better position to compare – has nagged since his first matches of the season at the Hopman Cup event in Perth. So he will have that looked at.
