Andreas Seppi

Andreas Seppi (German pronunciation: [anˈdreːas ˈsɛpi]; Italian: [ˈsɛppi]; born 21 February 1984) is an Italian professional tennis player from the South Tyrol region in northern Italy, who turned professional in 2002. He considers clay and hard courts his favourite surfaces and is coached by Massimo Sartori. Seppi has reached a career-high singles ranking of World No. 18.

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 which started at 11:47pm and finished at 4:33am because of a two-hour delay.

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.

Seppi at the 2014 Madrid Open

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 semifinals 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 quarterfinal loss in Dubai to eventual champion Djokovic (extending the Italian's winless record to 0–11) and a fourth-round loss in Miami to Andy Murray, who went on to win the tournament.

2014

Seppi's 2014 season started poorly; losing every match at the Hopman Cup. In the Sydney International, Seppi was seeded 3rd. He was defeated by Marinko Matosevic in the second round (bye first round). In the Australian Open, he beat Lleyton Hewitt in five sets but lost to Donald Young in the second round.

At the Rotterdam Open, he was defeated by Tomas Berdych in the first round. He then lost to Michael Llodra in Marseille. Seppi did manage to find some form in Dubai, reaching the second round by beating Florian Mayer coming from 3–0 down in the third set. The match ended 4–6, 6–1, 7–5. He was then defeated by Philipp Kohlschreiber. He reached the third of the Indian Wells and the Miami Masters losing to Stanislas Wawrinka and David Ferrer respectively. At the 2014 Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters Seppi defeated no.13 seed Mikhail Youzhny and Pablo Andujar but lost to Rafael Nadal in the third round.

2015

In January at the 2015 Australian Open, the unseeded Seppi caused a huge upset by beating second seed and four-time champion Roger Federer in the third round in four sets, after having lost to him in ten previous meetings. Seppi was defeated in the next round by Nick Kyrgios in five sets, despite having a match point in the fourth set.

Seppi's next tournament after the Australian Open was the 2015 PBZ Zagreb Indoors, where he was seeded fifth. There, he reached his first final since 2012 but lost to Spaniard Guillermo García-López in straight sets.

2016: Struggle with form & decline in rankings

He started off with a decent result in the 2016 Australian Open, as the 28th seed he managed to get to the third round before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic. He had two disappointing results in the 2016 Indian Wells Masters & the 2016 Miami Open, In the 2016 Indian Wells Masters he lost to 9th seed John Isner and in the 2016 Miami Open he lost to 27th seed Alexandr Dolgopolov. In the Italian Open he lost to Richard Gasquet in the second round. Seppi crashed out of the 2016 French Open in the first round to Ernest Gulbis. In 2016 Wimbledon Championships, Seppi smashed Guillermo García-López in straight sets before losing to eventual finalist Milos Raonic in the second round.

Seppi is bilingual German and Italian. He also speaks 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.

Seppi currently uses Pro Kennex tennis racqets and wears Fila gear.

Singles: 8 (3 titles, 5 runners-up)

Outcome	No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent	Score
Runner-up	1.	13 September 2007	Swiss Open, Gstaad, Switzerland	Clay	Paul-Henri Mathieu	7–6(7–1), 4–6, 5–7
Winner	1.	18 June 2011	Eastbourne International, Eastbourne, England	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, England	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
Runner-up	4.	8 February 2015	Zagreb Indoors, Zagreb, Croatia	Hard (i)	Guillermo García-López	6–7(5–7), 3–6
Runner-up	5.	21 June 2015	Halle Open, Halle, Germany	Grass	Roger Federer	6–7(1–7), 4–6

Doubles: 7 (1 title, 6 runners-up)

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 Mertiňák	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
Runner-up	6.	6 October 2013	China Open, Beijing, China	Hard	Fabio Fognini	Max Mirnyi Horia Tecău	4–6, 2–6
Winner	1.	27 February 2016	Dubai Tennis Championships, Dubai, United Arab Emirates	Hard	Simone Bolelli	Feliciano López Marc López	6–2, 3–6, [14–12]

Current through the 2015 US Open.