MARATHON MAN
Pospisil makes Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Vasek Pospisil walked into an interview room on Monday ni ght, about 12 hours after he had arrived at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. He had spent almost six of those hours — five hours, 58 minutes — on court.
He smiled, then composed himself, then grinned some more.
His look said it all: That was ridiculous.
“It’s a long day for sure,” he said. That it was. Two matches, 10 sets. A five-set singles win, followed by a five-set doubles loss. In between, some protein shakes and an ice bath.
“A lot of recovery work,” he said. I would guess so.
To begin his day, Pospisil rallied from two sets down to overcome Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, a very solid player and the 22nd seed, in five sets (4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3). He then had about two hours off before returning with doubles partner Jack Sock for a doubles match against Jamie Murray — Andy’s brother — and John Peers. Pospisil and Sock, the defending doubles champions, dropped the first two sets of that match before winning the next two. They went down 8-6 in the final set.
Pospisil has now played 31 sets of tennis over seven matches through seven days of play. Fifteen of those sets have come since Saturday. Roger Federer, by way of comparison, has played 13 sets in the entire tournament.
The win over Troicki puts Pospisil, who just turned 25, into the quarter-final of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. He will now face Andy Murray, the 2013 Wimbledon champion, on Wednesday. For Pospisil, who already took out one British player, James Ward, on Saturday in front of a loud and hostile Court 1 crowd, the Murray match will be on the grandest stage at Wimbledon: Centre Court.
Before Wimbledon, Pospisil had won only two five-set matches in his career. He had lost five of them. He has now won three of them in this tournament, including his last two matches, both of them comeback wins.
“I’ve been trying to focus on being more clutch,” Pospisil said. Asked to explain what, exactly, that entails, he couldn’t exactly put it in words: “Just focusing on the mental side,” he said.
Whatever he’s doing, it’s working. Although it took a while to get there. After a strong service game to open the match, Pospisil missed everything in his second game with the serve: a long forehand from the baseline, a volley at the net that carried too far, and two more missed forehands. It was a quick break from Troicki, and with Pospisil unable to even muster a break point of his own against the Serb, the first set was lost.
In the second set, Pospisil managed a few break opportunities, but couldn’t convert, and he jumped out to a lead in the tiebreaker before a costly wobble. A double fault allowed Troicki to square the tiebreak, which he followed up by winning a long rally that included a desperate save of a Pospisil smash. Troicki won the next two points to take the tiebreaker 7-4.
It wasn’ t that Pospisil looked overmatched by the 22nd seed, or even that he had made many mistakes, but Troicki had been just that little bit better through two sets. He was clinical: the odd drop shot when he caught Pospisil playing deep; a crafty lob over the Canadian’s head when he charged to try to cut off the court. It was looking like Pospisil would be able to take credit for a gutsy effort against a talented opponent, but nothing more.
The third set proceeded in a similar fashion: both men controlling their serves and another tiebreaker looming. But at 4-4 in the set, Pospisil found an opening. Troicki would say later that his opponent started playing his serve deeper, giving himself more time to attack it. (Pospisil later agreed with that assessment.) All of a sudden, he had a break point, and Pospisil responded with a deep forehand that Troicki couldn’t return. It was, literally, the break he needed.
When the fourth set opened, it was Troicki who unexpectedly swooned. A great forehand winner from Pospisil and a double fault from the Serb gave Pospisil an early opening, and with his serve firing — just like on Saturday, he seemingly couldn’ t miss late in the match — he took control of the set.
“He was serving unbelievable,” Troicki said. “He didn’t have unbelievable numbers of aces, but he had great percentage of serves and great angles. He served throughout the whole match unbelievable. In the end, he played more aggressively, took his chances and played more aggressive than me.”
In the deciding set, Pospisil’s serve was again the key. At 3-3, Troicki won the first two points in a Pospisil service game, including one with a fully outstretched diving volley. Pospisil responded with two service rockets to bail himself out. In the very next game, Pospisil hit a perfect return off a Troicki serve to push it to deuce, then hit a pair of brilliant cross-court forehands for the break.
Serving for the match, Pospisil ripped his hardest serve to open the game — a 128-mph bullet that showed he wasn’t shrinking from the moment. When Troicki ultimately hit the net on match point, Pospisil collapsed to his knees, and was soon fully prone, face down on Court 12. So now, Murray. “He’s had a good run here,” the No. 3 seed of Pospisil. The Scot noted that fatigue might come into play for his opponent, but said he wouldn’t count on it.
Pospisil said he would be fine after a day’s rest. He also said he could draw on last year’s trip to the big stadium court, when he won the doubles with Sock.
“I’ve had one Centre Court experience,” he said, “and it was a great one.”
He smiled again. He still had the energy for that, at least.