Vasek Pospisil’s ride at the Olympic Summer Games in London was a short one.
The 22-year-old rising tennis star bowed out of both the singles and doubles competitions this week at the All-England Club in London.
Pospisil teamed up with Toronto’s Daniel Nestor to ground Romania’s Adrian Ungur and Horatio Tecau 6-3, 7-6 (11-9) Monday, but fell 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 11-9 to third-seeded Janko Tipsarevic and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia a day later.
It was the third loss for Canada in tennis action on Day 4, as Thornhill, Ont.’s Milos Raonic and Laval, Que.’s Aleksandra Wozniak were eliminated from singles competition.
Nestor and Pospisil dropped the opening set, but rallied to win a second-set tiebreaker. However, the Canadian duo failed to capitalize on its break point opportunities, going 0-for-5, while the Serbs went 2-for-2.
Against the Romanians, Pospisil and Nestor broke their opponents to take the first set, and had to battle to force a tie-breaker in a lengthy second set. The Canadians combined for 11 aces and 26 winners.
Nestor, the top-ranked doubles player on the ATP list, won a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney with partner Sebastien Lareau. He and Pospisil are 2-0 on the Davis Cup circuit, including a win over Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram of Israel.
Pospisil is ranked 246th in doubles.
In his Olympic debut Sunday, Pospisil fell in straight sets (6-4, 6-4) to Spain’s David Ferrer.
Pospisil, listed at No. 85 in singles, counted more winners than Ferrer (18 to 13), but converted just 48 per cent of his first serves to Ferrer’s 75 per cent, and committed 26 unforced errors to the Spaniard’s eight. Pospisil also had six double faults, and Ferrer had none.
“Tough loss vs Ferrer at Olympics but played good match and enjoyed representing Canada!” wrote Pospisil, on his Twitter account (@VasekPospisil).
With Spain’s Rafael Nadal, the world No. 3, bowing out of the Olympics due to injury, No. 5 Ferrer is Spain’s top medal contender.
Pospisil didn’t get much rest before his Olympic debut, as he had to take the red-eye to London after winning the $50,000 National Bank Challenger tournament last week in Granby, Ont.
– Vernon’s other Olympic hopeful, Savannah King, did not advance from her heat in the women’s 400-metre freestyle Sunday at the Aquatics Centre.
King, 20, clocked a 4:10.93 to finish seventh in her heat. Teammate Brittany Maclean of Toronto was second in the same heat with 4:05.06 to advance. She finished seventh in final (4:06.24).
Tweeted King (@72theKING): “I have the greatest friends and family ever! Thanks so much for the support. It wasn’t what I wanted but I have another shot on Thursday (in the 800-m freestyle).”
