INSIDE VIEW WITH VASEK POSPISIL
Canadian’s YouTube channel goes behind the scenes of his rejuvenated game, not to mention the drama that comes from learning how to throw a baseball
Vasek Pospisil knew how to play guitar but he didn’t know how to throw a baseball. These are among the revelations to be gleaned from Bounce, his documentary-type channel on the life of a touring tennis pro, which launches this month on YouTube.
Pospisil, 26, of Vernon, B.C., reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon in 2015 and cracked the top 30 of the ATP rankings. He struggled last season, going 10-23 in singles, dropping out of the top 100, and losing two shots at an Olympic medal with Canadian partner Daniel Nestor.
He’s now working with a new coach, Australian Mark Woodforde. Pospisil won twice at the Davis Cup, beating British players ranked in the top 50, and he says he’s ready for a comeback.
Pospisil spoke to Postmedia in Toronto about playing in front of rowdy crowds, dealing with umpires, and learning how to throw a pitch.
Q What made you decide to share your private life on YouTube?
A It seemed like a lot of fun. My brother (Tom) travels with me a lot and he loves recording. He’s been recording behind-thescenes stuff for years anyway, so it was just, why not make some stuff out of it? It doesn’t feel like work to me, it feels like something away from work, like a hobby. Sometimes I get consumed with my sport, and it’s actually one of the things that I think will help me.
Q One of the episodes is about you throwing the first pitch at a Blue Jays game last year. Did you really not know how to throw a baseball?
A I had never thrown one. That was the first (time) I had held a baseball in my life — when they handed it to me. I thought it was going to be a little bit bigger. I found out two days before I was going to do the pitch and I was excited, but then nervous because I realized it might not be that easy to throw it accurately. I went into Walmart and I bought a lacrosse ball — I Googled and I couldn’t find a baseball, it was unbelievable — and so I practised outside the hotel that night. I was literally Googling ‘How to throw a baseball.’ I’m not kidding.
Q But in all your time on a tennis court, you didn’t just toss a ball around?
A Yes, but you’d be surprised, even that, over my junior career, I never fooled around with throwing balls. My dad was coaching me until I was, like, 20, and we never did stuff like that. I did soccer, some other sports, some basketball, but that’s all different. I had never thrown a football — although my new coach, he carries a football around so we’re throwing now — but up until that point I had thrown a football two times in my life. I was super nervous, for that reason.
Q You managed to get some practice tosses in at the Rogers Centre before you actually threw off the mound.
A It turned out well, so it was good. I was happy. It’s one of those things, you have everything to lose. I just wanted to be accurate. If you lace it and you hit it perfect, you’re not going to make any headlines or anything. But if you miss, you’re everywhere.
Q
You didn’t look up famous first-pitch bloopers or anything, did you? A
I did, which was a mistake. I looked at the top 10. But as soon as I saw Michael Jordan on there, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s not bad, if he’s up there …’ But, yeah, that was a mistake. That made me more nervous.
Q You had a good Davis Cup, but it ended in an unusual way. (Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov forfeited the deciding match after accidentally hitting the chair umpire with a ball.) What was that like?
A It was an interesting one. It was kind of bittersweet. I felt I performed really well and I kind of found my bearings again on the tennis court, but to end it that way was unfortunate. But it was a great week. Davis Cup weeks are such an honour to represent Canada. I really enjoy it.
Q You seem like you really respond to loud crowds. Do you find that an exciting atmosphere has an effect on your tennis?
A Absolutely it has. I’m an emotional guy and I feed off emotion, so if there’s crowd support, even if the crowd is against me, I don’t know what it is, but if fuels me. And obviously when it’s positive and it’s cheering for you it fuels you that much more. It’s kind of why I thrive in those situations. It’s very motivating. I feel like a warrior, like, ‘I have to do this for the team, and the people, and for Canada.’
Q After that Wimbledon run, it looked like you were about to take the next step as a singles player, but then you slid back last year. Have you been able to figure out what happened? A
It was a lot of things. That was the problem with last year, it wasn’t one thing that I could rule out, which is usually what happens in a typical dry spell. Last year was just a lot of different things, personal, professional, and obviously those things get intertwined together. It was an interesting time, and I learned a lot about myself and when I look back on that year it was almost like a premature mid-life crisis (laughs), I don’t know what else to call it. But why I’m happy now is not because I’m ranked back to where I think I belong, but I feel like everything has settled down. I have a new team, I know what I want, I feel like I’m motivated 100 per cent, I want to train again, my personal life is fine. I’m confident enough in my abilities that I think the ranking will take care of itself.
Q With your new coach, have you changed your approach?
A In general, the philosophy is in line with how I feel I should be playing, I know I need to be more aggressive. With Mark now, the idea is to be exactly that, to be more aggressive, making the points shorter, using my ability at the net a little bit, I think that’s something more specific that I’m doing with him. That’s something I haven’t completely used to my full advantage. That could be something that could get me to the top 20. Of course I have to get back near that ranking first.
Q Some of your more highprofile matches — against Andy Murray in the Wimbledon quarters, or against Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez in the Olympics last year — have involved strange umpiring calls that went against you. Is that just a coincidence, or what do you make of that?
A Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it much. The only correlation I would make with that is if you see me playing a high-profile match, it’s probably against a high-profile player who might be a top-5 player and in those cases they were. Unfortunately the human aspect of an umpire, they might favour them because of intimidation, because of their name, that’s just the reality of it. I’m a respectable pro, but these are two of the greatest in the history of the game; the problem is that sometimes an umpire feels they have to get involved in the match and when they do it’s usually in favour of the better player. Sometimes you see them try to make a call to compensate, because they know people talk about it, and the top players don’t know how to handle it because it just never happens to them. But, that’s just reality.
Q So you need to get in the top 10 and then it works in your favour.
A (laughs) Yeah, get in the top 10, then the calls will go my way. sstinson@postmedia.com Twitter.com/scott_stinson