Andreas Seppi - Tennis Career

Tennis Career

Seppi turned pro in 2000, playing exclusively on the ATP Futures and ATP Challenger Series circuit for three seasons. He won his first Futures event in 2003, in Munich, Germany, defeating Lars Übel. In addition, he qualified for his first two ATP events in Kitzbühel and Bucharest, where he was defeated by Olivier Mutis and José Acasuso,and Serena Williams.

In 2004, Seppi made his Davis Cup debut against Georgia, losing to Irakli Labadze in five sets. In Kitzbühel, Seppi failed to convert 10 match points against Rainer Schüttler in a second-round loss. A few weeks later, Seppi was able to gain revenge for this loss. In his Grand Slam debut as a qualifier, he defeated Schüttler, coming from two sets to love down. Seppi finished the 2005 season in the top 100 for the first time. He qualified for four ATP Masters Series events, with his best performance in Hamburg, where he reached the quarterfinals. In the Davis Cup, Seppi came back from two sets to love down and defeated Juan Carlos Ferrero, 5–7, 3–6, 6–0, 6–3, 6–2, before losing to Rafael Nadal in the reverse singles. After this performance, he reached his first ATP Tour semifinal in Palermo, where he defeated defending champion Tomáš Berdych, before falling to Igor Andreev.

In 2006, Seppi made semifinals on hard courts in Sydney and grass in Nottingham, showing that he was able to perform well on other surfaces besides clay. Seppi ended the streak of four consecutive Sydney titles for Lleyton Hewitt and, in the process, saved two match points. Seppi lost against Andre Agassi in his last appearance at Wimbledon.

At the 2007 Australian Open, Seppi defeated American Bobby Reynolds in five sets, after saving a match point. The match was scheduled for the afternoon, but was put back due to the heat. This match finished at 3:34 am, which was at the time the latest time for a match to be completed until it was surpassed by the Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis match at the 2008 Australian Open.

Seppi made the final of the Sunrise Challenger, defeating Gustavo Kuerten, Juan Martín del Potro, and Nicolás Massú, and then losing to Gaël Monfils. After Sunrise, Seppi struggled with his ranking outside the top 100. He surprisingly made his first ATP Tour final in Gstaad, where he defeated Stefan Koubek and Igor Andreev both in third-set tiebreakers. Seppi led 5–3 in the third set and had the opportunity to serve for the championship but failed to do so losing to Paul-Henri Mathieu 6–7, 6–4, 7–5. Seppi made his first semi final indoors in Vienna defeating two time defending champion Ivan Ljubičić along the way to complete the feat of at least making the semi finals of events played on clay, hardcourt, grass and indoors, eventually finishing in the top 80 for the third consecutive year.

The 2008 season Seppi won his first Challenger title at Bergamo where he defeated Julien Benneteau 2–6, 6–2, 7–5 in the final for the loss of 1 set in the tournament. He made the quarter-finals of the indoor event in Rotterdam where he defeated Lleyton Hewitt 3–6, 7–6, 7–6 in the process saving a match point. Then he scored his biggest win over the then world number 2 Rafael Nadal 3–6, 6–3, 6–4 before losing to Robin Söderling. Seppi qualified for the semi-finals of the Hamburg Masters, this was the first time he reached that stage of the Masters Series events, he defeated Richard Gasquet, Juan Mónaco and Nicolas Kiefer in a match where he led 6–3, 5–3 before winning 6–3, 5–7, 7–5 which included Seppi winning the last 4 games and went for 3 hours and 13 minutes in duration, before losing to Roger Federer in the semi-finals.

In 2009 Seppi made the semi finals in Belgrade and in Umag both on clay, while winning his second Challenger title in San Marino defeating countryman Potito Starace in the final. Seppi found success at the challenger level in 2010 where he won his third challenger title at Kitzbühel accounting for Victor Crivoi in the final.

For the second time Seppi won the Challenger title at Bergamo in 2011 and later in the year followed that victory with his first ATP title in 2011 at Eastbourne which came on grass defeating Janko Tipsarevic in the final after the Serbian retired at 5–3 down in the 3rd set. Earlier in the day Seppi played Igor Kunitsyn in the semi final which he also won in 3 sets.

Seppi won his second ATP title in 2012 at Belgrade defeating David Nalbandian in the semi finals and Benoit Paire in the final. At the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters he defeated Stanislas Wawrinka 6–7, 7–6, 7–6, having saved six match points in the process.

Seppi reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career at the 2012 French Open, eventually being defeated by world #1 Novak Djokovic in five sets having won the first two sets. He defeated Nikolay Davydenko in the first round along the way. He didn't fare well at the other Grand Slam tournaments, losing in the first round of the Australian and US Opens as well as Wimbledon.