Canadian Vasek Pospisil, the former World No. 25, is four years removed from achieving his career-high in the ATP Rankings. But the 27-year-old is well on his way to returning to his top form, finding great success on the ATP Challenger Tour in 2018.
Pospisil entered this week's Oracle Challenger Series Indian Wells on the heels of impressive runs on the Challenger circuit, winning the Open de Rennes in France and the Hungarian Challenger Open in Budapest to move back inside the Top 100 of the ATP Rankings. He enters Friday's quarter-final encounter with American Christian Harrison with a perfect 12-0 Challenger record this year.
“I feel great. I've had a great start of the year. Couldn't be better, to be honest, and [I’m] just trying to build my ranking back up to where it was in the past, where I feel like I belong,” Pospisil told ATPWorldTour.com from Indian Wells. “[I’ve] been working extremely hard and I'm just very happy that the start of the year so far has been good and [I’ve] played well. It's a very long year, so it's just the beginning, but definitely an encouraging start.”
And it’s only fitting that the Canadian is rounding into form at the same venue where he earned the best win of his career last season: the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Pospisil defeated then-World No. 1 Andy Murray at the 2017 BNP Paribas Open, sending shockwaves throughout the Coachella Valley.
“It was a great week for me last year. It's always special coming down here, playing in Indian Wells,” Pospisil said. “My family always comes down and I've had some good results in the past. So every time I come out here, I reminisce on those and there are tons of Canadian fans that come out as well and I have great support… definitely always very happy to be back here and I'm sure that has to do with the good results. So hopefully I can perform well. I'll do my best, that's for sure.”
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The World No. 83 is attempting to maintain his perfect ATP Challenger Tour mark as he prepares to play qualifying at the BNP Paribas Open - the first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament of the year - next week. And while this success may not be coming at tour-level events, Pospisil has not taken the tournaments lightly by any means.
“You can't expect results without hard work… every match is tough. I mean every level, every time you step on the court, you've got to be ready,” Pospisil said. “It doesn't matter what tournament you're playing. The ATP [World Tour] has a lot of depth and every match is really tough… right now I'm extremely motivated, working very hard, spending hours on the court and in the gym. So I think now I just have to be patient and let the results take care of themselves.”
Pospisil hired two new coaches in the offseason: Dirk Hordorff and Rainer Schuettler, a pair whom the Canadian says have helped his game tremendously after falling to year-end No. 108.
“I'm very happy with them. I mean, it's going really great,” Pospisil said. “They're very, very good coaches…. I'm just just thrilled to be back on the court and working hard on my game. We have a clear goal and things that we're trying to improve and we're working hard every single day and that's that's the main thing.”
While Pospisil does want to move back towards the Top 50 of the ATP Rankings and eventually back inside the Top 30, where he last was in July of 2015, the Canadian has a broader goal in mind.
“Honestly right now, it's just about improving. I feel like I still have a lot to improve on in my game,” Pospisil said. ”Then, of course, I have my sights set on ranking goals, which is only natural and healthy to have. But at the same time, you don't want to get too distracted by that…. I'm not looking too far ahead right now, to be honest. I just feel like I have a lot of work ahead of me, just getting my groove back and confidence back and playing good tennis again.”
Seeded third, Pospisil will be back in action against Harrison on Friday. Marius Copil, Taylor Fritz and Dudi Sela are other seeds remaining in Indian Wells.
