Queen's Club R1 - David Gets Going against Pospisil

(photo by Istabraq)

Perhaps, it wasn't really surprising that when after almost two days of waiting David finally got to play his first-round match yesterday, in the cold and the gathering gloom of an overcast (but at least dry) London evening - he did catch a slow start. Also playing, once more, against an opponent he had probably never heard of before. But in the end, after turning the match around, following the loss of the first set, David won his first match of this rather unusual grass-court season by defeating Vasek Pospisil 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.
In the second round, later today, his opponent will be Ruben Bemelmans (who replaced Leo Mayer in the draw). It'll be David's first meeting with the Belgian lefty (#131).

(Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)

A brief summary. The first set saw David practically without any chances on Pospisil's serve, with the young Canadian dropping merely four points on serve during it (and winning 100% of his first serves). But David held quite comfortably too, until facing but then also saving a first break point to get to 3-3. Serving to stay in the set at 5-4 for Pospisil, however, David faced another break point - and then came the double fault...

The game that probably turned out to be crucial for the match was the first one in set 2. During it, David had to fend off three further break points and had Pospisil converted one of those, it would've made things really rather difficult for David. But he saved all three and went on to break Pospisil in the next game, a lead he then managed to extend to a double break (for 4-1) before serving out the set to take it 6-2.

Early on the third set, at 1-1, the longest service game and deuce battle of the match saw David having altogether five chances to break, the last of which he finally managed to take. Having gone up a double break again after that (for 4-1), David came under pressure one last time in the following game. But after saving another break point and getting through to 5-1, David eventually served out the match, converting his first match point.

That's the order in which things happened yesterday on Court 1 and as much as could be gathered from following it on the scoreboard. However, Istabraq was there in the stands and her impressions from the match you can read here. Apart from that, she also took photos (thank you!), which have been added (along with more agency pics) to the Photo Page.

So, a bit of a slow start but all in all a good start for David at the Queen's Club and an important match to win after Roland Garros. Let's hope he can build on it today.

(Alastair Grant/AP Photo)