Pospisil Advances

Photo Credit  Bo Mon Kwan

While the weather was somewhat coolish in the Delta area some were surprised to hear that there was a rain delay during Friday’s Odlum Brown VanOpen.

I hear from media relations Brian Wiebe that the delay took over 90 minutes for it to clear up and that’s most likely the reason matches were played late Friday evening.

Earlier in the week at media day it wasn’t a surprise to hear from Vasek Pospisil (32) that he was extremely focused on playing at the end of the week.

Well he made it to the court Friday evening managing to pull out a win over the former #6 Gilles Simon in straight sets.

He took a commanding 6-1win in the first set while Simon managed to get the second set at 5-5, but to Pospisil’s credit he won the last two sets of the match.

Being up late is nothing new for yours truly and staying focused on the match I was glued to the webcast until just prior to midnight and it was worth the watch.

Following the match Pospisil mentioned “I’m feeling a lot better today than the other day, that’s for sure. It’s still really physical, (the temperature) was cool, but obviously fielding all the points and playing so many balls, it’s really hard work out here and I’m sweating like an animal.”

His next match had him face Arthur Rinderknech who is the third seed after he defeated the defending Odlum Brown VanOpen champion Ricardas Berankis.

In other semifinal matches fifth seed France’s Constant Lestienne who is the fifth seed went against Ugo Humbert. 

Lestienne punched his way to the semifinals by (6-2, 4-6, 6-3) wins over Spain’s World No. 7 Fernando Verdasco. 

Humbert shocked many by defeating fourth seed wild card Mikael Ymer of Sweden 5-7, 6- 2, 6-2. 

Playing on the Women’s side in the semifinals matched Emma Navarro (US) up against 25 year-old Valentini Grammatikopoulou; while second seed Lucia Bronzetti took on Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson who was the fifth seed.

Saturday featured another full day of tennis with the men’s singles semifinals, with the chance to catch the women’s singles semifinals as well as both the finals of men’s and women’s doubles.

Sunday is the final day for this year’s Odlum Brown VanOpen and I am hearing that ticket sales went through the roof when the event was first announced.

Sit home and catch the action on-line for the ATP Tennis