JAMES WARD suffered a narrow and agonising five-set defeat on Number One Court when a fearless and highly competent performance was not enough to dispose of Vasek Pospisil.
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The 28-year-old, who overcame Luca Vanni in his first game at SW19 this year, had never before reached the third round of a Grand Slam.
After dropping the second and third sets, Pospisil managed to find another level – a particular surprise given his heavy workload this week. Troicki has played eight sets overall and over five and a half hours of tennis. Pospisil keep the lead and he didn´t have problems to equalize the match winning the fourth set 6/3. “So I’m still really focused and have a pretty good opportunity now again”, Pospisil said.
Pospisil, who has to come back down to reality and play on smaller Court 12 Monday against Troicki (the same court on which he defeated No. 30 seed Fabio Fognini in the second round), said he’ll have a light 30-minute hit on the quiet middle Sunday, and perhaps play a little guitar. Set to lose a whack of points in the first week of August when credit for his runner-up finish in Washington, D.C., previous year come off the board, he has secured his standing in the top 50.
The Briton would not be denied squaring the match as he wrestled away the authority from Pospisil, who had become passive and error-strewn in his ground-strokes, which lacked the punch of the opening set. And yet the bottom line is that both Ward and Pospisil are strong servers with slightly erratic returns. He will hold his head up high. Ward, on the other side, pumped his fist and yelled as the crowd stood and cheered.
“Pospisil can play well on grass there’s no doubt, so it’s going to be a big challenge for James“, said Bjorkman.
While Ward was offering sporadic moments of hope, Pospisil had a vice-like grip on proceedings on his serve, conceding just two points in his six service games as the match entered the sudden-death tiebreak.
Pospisil looked finished. But then tennis happened.
But then the pendulum swung again and Pospisil was able to break Ward in the fourth game of the fourth set, the British player casually sending two regulation forehands into the net.
“I just kind of went all in and went for it mentally”, he explained of rallying from the 2-1 set arrears.
The result proved the same however, Ward fending off one break point with an ace in the deciding set, but being unable to defend two.
Then he refocused and turned it around.
Reflecting on the loss, Ward continued: “It’s hard right now”.
“Now I just have to build on it. Making the top 100 is a big milestone and I have a few more years left”. “Towards the end of the match, it was difficult to break”. He saved the first but netted a relatively simple volley to give Pospisil the advantage.
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And now, on to week two.
