Andreas Seppi

Andreas Seppi

Country	Italy
Residence	Kaltern an der Weinstraße, South Tyrol, Italy
Born	(1984-02-21) 21 February 1984 Bolzano, Italy
Height	1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight	75 kg (170 lb)
Turned pro	2002
Plays	Right-handed (two-handed backhand)
Prize money	$4,650,485
Singles
Career record	221–236
Career titles	3
Highest ranking	No. 18 (28 January 2013)
Current ranking	No. 22 (20 May 2013)
Grand Slam Singles results
Australian Open	4R (2013)
French Open	4R (2012)
Wimbledon	3R (2008, 2009)
US Open	3R (2008)
Doubles
Career record	68–131
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 67 (8 August 2012)
Current ranking	No. 87 (20 May 2013)
Grand Slam Doubles results
Australian Open	QF (2009)
French Open	2R (2009)
Wimbledon	3R (2012)
US Open	QF (2011)
Last updated on: 20 May 2013.

Andreas Seppi (born 21 February 1984 in Bolzano, Italy) is a professional tennis player from South Tyrol, northern Italy, who turned professional in 2002. He considers clay and hard courts his favourite surfaces and is coached by Massimo Sartori. Seppi reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 18 in January 2013.

Tennis career

Early career

Seppi turned pro in 2001, 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, respectively.

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, 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.

2006–2007

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. 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.

2008–2010

Andreas Seppi at 2008 US Open

The 2008 season Seppi won his first Challenger title at Bergamo where he defeated Julien Benneteau 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 in the process saving a match point. Then he scored his biggest win over the then world number 2 Rafael Nadal 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 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.

2011–2012: Breakthrough

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 Tipsarević 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 Benoît Paire in the final. At the quarterfinals of the Rome Masters he defeated Stanislas Wawrinka, 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 former World No. 3 Nikolay Davydenko in the first round and former top ten player Fernando Verdasco 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.

2013: Entering the Top 20

Seppi started his 2013 season at the Hopman Cup, partnering 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone. Seppi lost all three of his singles rubbers, to Novak Djokovic, Bernard Tomic and Tommy Haas, but combined with Schiavone to win all their doubles rubbers, against the Serbian pairing of Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic, the Australian pairing of Tomic and Ashleigh Barty and the German pairing of Haas and Tatjana Malek. The win over the Serbian pair of Djokovic and Ivanovic marked the first victory for Seppi and Schiavone over their respective opponents in any capacity, as Seppi has never defeated Djokovic and Schiavone has never beaten Ivanovic in professional singles matches.

At the Sydney International the following week, Seppi reached the semi-finals as the third seed, losing to eventual champion Tomic.

Seppi reached the fourth round of the 2013 Australian Open, a result which saw him enter the world's Top 20 for the first time.

Mixed results followed the Australian Open, with a quarter-final loss in Dubai to eventual champion Djokovic (extending the Italian's winless record to 0–11) and a fourth round loss at Miami to Andy Murray, who went on to win the tournament.

Personal

Seppi speaks Italian, German and English. He supports A.C. Milan and his nicknames are Andy and also Seppio, given to him by his coach. His good friend, WTA player Karin Knapp lives in the same town as Seppi. When asked how he managed to lose in the 2007 Kitzbühel quarter-finals to good friend Potito Starace after being 6–1, 5–3 ahead, he answered "Easy: if I beat him who would have supplied me with movies for the whole season?".

In Rotterdam 2008, the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Seppi, after he defeated Rafael Nadal and when asked by the on court interviewer after being drawn to play Lleyton Hewitt and then Rafael Nadal whether he expected reach quarter-finals, Seppi answered "that he had his flight booked for Wednesday".

ATP career finals

Singles: 6 (3–3)

Legend (Singles) Grand Slam tournaments(0–0) ATP World Tour Finals (0–0) ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (0–0) ATP World Tour 500 Series (0–0) ATP World Tour 250 Series (3–3)

Titles by Surface Hard (1–1) Clay (1–1) Grass (1–1) Carpet (0–0)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	13 September 2007	ATP Gstaad, Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Paul-Henri Mathieu	7–6(7–1), 4–6, 5–7
Winner	1.	18 June 2011	AEGON International, Eastbourne, United Kingdom	Grass	Janko Tipsarević	7–6(7–5), 3–6, 5–3, ret.
Winner	2.	6 May 2012	Serbia Open, Belgrade, Serbia	Clay	Benoît Paire	6–3, 6–2
Runner-up	2.	24 June 2012	AEGON International, Eastbourne, United Kingdom	Grass	Andy Roddick	3–6, 2–6
Runner-up	3.	23 September 2012	Moselle Open, Metz, France	Hard (i)	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	1–6, 2–6
Winner	3.	21 October 2012	Kremlin Cup, Moscow, Russia	Hard (i)	Thomaz Bellucci	3–6, 7–6(7–3), 6–3

Doubles: 5 (0–5)

Legend ( Doubles) Grand Slam tournaments (0–0) ATP World Tour Finals (0–0) ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (0–0) ATP World Tour 500 Series (0–1) ATP World Tour 250 Series (0–4)

Titles by Surface Hard (0–3) Clay (0–1) Grass (0–0) Carpet (0–0)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Partner	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	4 February 2006	PBZ Zagreb Indoors, Zagreb, Croatia	Hard (i)	Davide Sanguinetti	Jaroslav Levinský Michal Mertinák	6–7(7–9), 1–6
Runner-up	2.	18 July 2010	Swedish Open, Båstad, Sweden	Clay	Simone Vagnozzi	Robert Lindstedt Horia Tecău	4–6, 5–7
Runner-up	3.	10 October 2010	Japan Open Tennis Championships, Tokyo, Japan	Hard	Dmitry Tursunov	Eric Butorac Jean-Julien Rojer	3–6, 2–6
Runner-up	4.	7 January 2011	Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Doha, Qatar	Hard	Daniele Bracciali	Rafael Nadal Marc López	3–6, 6–7(4–7)
Runner-up	5.	16 June 2011	AEGON International, Eastbourne, United Kingdom	Grass	Grigor Dimitrov	Jonathan Erlich Andy Ram	3–6, 3–6

Challengers and Futures

Challengers (5)

Futures (1)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
1.	20 January 2003	Munich	Carpet	Lars Übel	6–4, 7–5
2.	4 February 2008	Bergamo	Hard (i)	Julien Benneteau	2–6, 6–2, 7–5
3.	3 August 2009	San Marino	Clay	Potito Starace	7–6(7–4), 2–6, 6–4
4.	2 August 2010	Kitzbühel	Clay	Victor Crivoi	6–2, 6–1
5.	7 February 2011	Bergamo	Hard (i)	Gilles Müller	3–6, 6–3, 6–4
5.	9 October 2011	Mons	Hard	Julien Benneteau	2–6, 6–3, 7–6(7–4)

Singles performance timeline

Current till 2013 Internazionali BNL d'Italia.

Tournament	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	W–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open	LQ	LQ	1R	2R	2R	1R	1R	2R	1R	4R	6–8
French Open	LQ	LQ	1R	1R	1R	2R	2R	2R	4R		6–7
Wimbledon	LQ	1R	2R	2R	3R	3R	2R	2R	1R		8–8
US Open	2R	1R	1R	1R	3R	1R	1R	1R	1R		3–9
Win–Loss	1–1	0–2	1–4	2–4	5–4	3–4	2–4	3–4	3–4	3–1	23–32
ATP World Tour Masters 1000
Indian Wells Masters		LQ	1R	2R	2R	2R	2R	1R	2R	3R	6–8
Miami Masters		1R	1R	1R	2R	2R	1R	2R	1R	4R	5–9
Monte Carlo Masters		2R	2R	2R	2R	2R	2R	A	2R	1R	7–8
Rome Masters	1R	2R	1R	LQ	2R	2R	2R	1R	QF	1R	7–9
Madrid Masters	LQ	LQ	LQ		1R	3R	1R	A	2R	1R	3–5
Canada Masters		LQ	LQ		1R	A	A	1R	1R		0–3
Cincinnati Masters		LQ	1R	LQ	3R	2R	A	1R	2R		4–5
Shanghai Masters	Not Masters Series					A	3R	A	2R		2–1
Paris Masters		1R	1R	2R	1R	2R	LQ	3R	2R		5–7
Hamburg Masters	1R	QF	2R	LQ	SF	Not Masters Series					8–4
Win–Loss	0–2	5–5	2–7	3–4	10–9	8–7	5–6	3–6	9–9	3–5	48–60
Career statistics
Titles–Finals	0–0	0–0	0–0	0–1	0–0	0–0	0–0	1–1	2–4	0–0	3–6
Year End Ranking	146	68	74	50	35	49	52	38	23

Doubles performance timeline

Current through the 2013 Australian Open.

Tournament	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	W–L
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open				1R	QF	3R	1R	1R	2R	6–6
French Open		1R		1R	2R	1R	1R	1R		1–6
Wimbledon		1R		1R	1R	2R	1R	3R		3–6
US Open	1R	1R	1R	1R	3R	1R	QF	1R		5–8
Win–Loss	0–1	0–3	0–1	0–4	6–4	3–4	3–4	2–4	1–1	15–26

External links

• Official Andreas Seppi Website
• Andreas Seppi at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Seppi Recent Match Results
• Seppi World Ranking History