Vasek Pospisil, by all accounts, has had a very successful career. On the singles side, he has gotten as high as number 25 in the world, has been a finalist of an ATP World Tour 500-level tournament (Washington), and even made the Quarterfinals of Wimbledon last year. In doubles, Pospisil has won six titles with his doubles partner Jack Sock, He won the Wimbledon doubles title with Jack Sock, including a Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells. However, Vasek's biggest doubles achievement was a Wimbledon doubles title, something that definitely provided a bump in results for his singles career too.
And as great of a career as this has been for Vasek, looking at his results, they definitely leave something to be desired. Because, for all his great results on grass, and to a lesser extent hard courts, his clay court prowess, in regards to his singles career, has been pathetic. Yes, I said it, pathetic. Vasek Pospisil, 25 years old, and currently the world number 46 in the live rankings, has never won a main draw ATP clay court match in his life. And as much as this shows how well he must have done on other surfaces, it's deeply disturbing to see this level of ineptitude on the second most common surface on the ATP World Tour. In fact, in the best-of-five format, Pospisil has only forced a fifth once, losing to Horacio Zeballos in five sets in 2013.
But, it's not for a lack of trying, at least during matches. Unlike another top 50 tennis player, Bernard Tomic, when watching Pospisil on clay, you can see that despite it not being a surface he is even decent on, he is still giving his all and is mentally engaged in the match. Against Radek Stepanek in the First Round of Madrid earlier this week, Pospisil was trying to fire himself up upon winning the second set and one could tell that he was desperately searching for answers on how to solve the puzzle that is clay court tennis. And I commend him for having this attitude, there is nothing worse than the attitude of Bernard Tomic, where because his game might not naturally suit clay, he just doesn't give a shit (excuse my language). And for Vasek, it's not like he can't win a set on clay. In the past two years, in a best-of-three format, he has won a set in an ATP-level match three different times, but always fell in the third set.
So, now that we've established that Pospisil is giving his all on the court, and has had successes on other surfaces, what could be the major obstacle stopping Pospisil from success on clay and how can he jump this hurdle? And upon watching and following Vasek's career enough, I have come to the conclusion that the major problem with Pospisil on clay has nothing to do with his tennis game itself. Rather, Vasek is so unbelievably unfit, that he physically cannot win a match against decent competition on this surface.
You see, clay is unlike other surfaces in that the surface itself doesn't allow players to merely out-serve and outhit their opposition, which is much of what has made Pospisil successful on the main tour. Point construction is a must, and one's baseline skills must be fine-tuned in order to be successful on the surface. What all of this means is that points are going to last longer and be much more physically taxing than on, say, a grass court. And if a player is not in tip-top shape, then said will struggle massively on the surface. And, upon watching Vasek on clay and seeing his results, I think it's safe to say that his fitness level is deplorable, which means that his successes on clay will be very minimal.
I like to think of myself as someone who has been involved with fitness for quite some time, and someone who recognizes the importance of fitness as something that is crucial to the life of everyone, but should be especially crucial in the prime years of their life, such as Vasek. And I believe that the problem with Pospisil's fitness, and a lot of tennis players in general, is that tennis training focuses too much on short bursts of speed/intervals. And while this is definitely the most practical fitness application to tennis, I think that long-distance running gets short-changed, and for someone who might not naturally be a "runner" like Pospisil, this can severely affect his results.
You know, it seemed like people all throughout the tennis world were collectively wondering what Caroline Wozniacki was doing when she decided to run that marathon at the tail end of 2014, however, it was amazing to see her results spike when she was training for that marathon. During the second half of 2014, she was able to consistently challenge Serena Williams and even got to the US Open Final. I definitely think that there was a correlation between her marathon training her results. And, while I'm not saying that Vasek needs to run a marathon, some distance running would definitely do some good for not only his clay results, but for every match he plays.
So, for as hard as it seems Pospisil is during matches, it is clear that he either is not working hard off of the court, or is not training in a proper fashion. And maybe, at least partially, the environment he is putting himself in is to blame. Or, in other words, since Sock seems to be having issues being able to physically last in matches too, perhaps this doubles combination creates a horrible environment for fitness, as one's poor training rubs off on the other's training too. And, again, this is just speculation, however it is curious to me how two of the people with the worst fitness on tour just so happen to be doubles partners.
Vasek Pospisil has a decision to make. He is absolutely a talented tennis player. Now, he must decide whether he wants to put in the work, and the right type of work, in order to reach his full potential.
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