Italy’s Seppi rallies from two sets down, beats Canada’s Pospisil in Davis Cup

VANCOUVER – For a while it looked like lightning was going strike twice in the same place for Canada’s Davis Cup tennis team.

Team Canada was hoping Friday that Vasek Pospisil might be able to pull a huge upset similar to the one Frank Dancevic managed in the previous tie in February when he upset a player ranked 132 places ahead of him in World Group first-round action against Spain.

However, although coming tantalizingly close, Pospisil couldn’t quite pull it off despite holding a two-set lead before going down 5-7, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 to Andreas Seppi in the opening singles match of the World Group quarter-final against Italy at the University of British Columbia’s Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.

In the second match, Canada’s top player, Milos Raonic, will try to get Canada back on even footing against Italy’s Fabio Fognini.

Seppi is Italy’s top singles player and ranked No. 18 in the world to No. 140 for Pospisil — who was filling in for the injured Dancevic.

It was looking very promising for a while as the 22-year-old native of Vernon, B.C., thrilled the crowd by taking the first two sets over his highly-rated opponent. But Seppi showed his fighting spirit by digging in to claim the final three sets and the victory.

The talented Seppi started to turn things around in the third set, breaking Pospisil in the third game then holding serve the rest of the way. Then he broke his young Canadian opponent in the opening game of the fourth and again in the ninth to even the match.

In the fifth and deciding set momentum had clearly shifted the way for Italy’s top player who gained the decisive break in game four —when Pospisil hit a backhand into the net — for a 3-1 lead he never relinquished.

Pospisil managed 10 aces to seven for his opponent. But the young Canadian also dished up six double faults to only three by Seppi.

The loss evened Pospisil’s career Davis Cup overall record at 7-7 while his singles mark slipped to 4-5. Seppi’s Davis Cup mark is now 15-13, 13-11 in singles.

Italy has won the Davis Cup once, in 1976. Canada has never won the Davis Cup, but was in the semi-finals in 1913. Canada is in the World Group quarter-finals for the first time since the current tiered format began in 1981.

The winner of the Canada-Italy tie will move on to face either the U.S. or Serbia in the World Group semi-finals in September. The loser will retain its spot in the 2014 World Group without having to go into the playoff round.