Pospisil’s serve comes up short vs. Tsonga
Posted February 10, 2012 9:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER – The big serve wasn’t there when Vasek Pospisil needed it most.
While the Vernon, B.C., native’s straight-set defeat 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 to world No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Friday wasn’t a surprise, the fact his serving game went missing in action was.
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“It was tough playing without my biggest weapon,” world No. 115 Pospisil admitted to reporters following the first rubber. “I need to serve well in matches like this. If I can get three points on my serve then it helps everything, so it’s tough to play against top players in the world without one of your big weapons, so that was one thing that was tough about this game today – the fact my serve wasn’t as effective and the fact my serve percentage wasn’t there.”
Defeating Pospisil in only one hour and 51 minutes, Tsonga was frank when asked to evaluate his opponent’s weaknesses.
“I think he’s a good player, but he has to improve a lot with experience,” Tsonga said. “He needs matches like this to improve his game.
“He can serve better – he did a lot of double faults, and his average is not so good, so I think he can serve better and do everything better.”
A key point in the match came in the seventh game of the second set, with Pospisil having won two games in a row. After bringing the score to 3-3 in the set, and winning an impressive rally with that seventh game, Pospisil committed a double fault and never really looked in the match again from that point on.
“I had an opening in the second set,” Pospisil said. “But he played a couple of great points and I wasn’t able to take that, so he’s a good player and didn’t give me any opportunities.”
Another factor was the boisterous home crowd, which both players commented on.
“You can use a crowd like this to your advantage most of the time,” Pospisil said. “But the bottom line is I played a player who is sixth in the world who played a very good match, even for his standard of play. I don’t know how many free points he gave me – just a few unforced errors all match – and that’s tough to play against.
“Even if you have 100,000 people behind you, if you have a guy that’s playing this well, and a few shots from me which weren’t up to my standard it’s tough.”
Now Pospisil turns his attention to Saturday’s doubles match, where he will partner doubles legend Daniel Nestor against the French pairing of Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau.
And the right hander says the quick turnaround shouldn’t be a problem.
“It didn’t take too much out of me – it was probably under two hours,” Pospisil said. “It was a straight-set match. I’ve played five setters and then doubles the next day, and then singles the day after that, so it’s not going to take a physical toll.
“I’m disappointed right now, but it would have just been a bonus if I could have pulled off an upset, and I obviously wanted to. I expected more of myself today – I thought I could have stepped up and played a better match.
“But tomorrow’s a new day and if I’m called upon to play I’ll definitely be ready.”
