Andreas Seppi (born February 21, 1984 in Bolzano,
Italy) is a professional tennis player from the
province of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol-Italy, who
turned professional in 2000. Seppi is right handed
and plays with a two hand backhand. He considers
clay and hardcourts his favourite surface. He is
coached by Massimo Sartori. His career high was #32,
achieved on May 19, 2008.
Seppi turned pro in 2000 playing exclusively on the
ATP Futures and ATP Challenger Series circuit for
three season. He won his first Futures event in 2003
, Munich, Germany defeating Lars Uebel in addition
he qualified for his first two ATP events in
Kitzbuhel and Bucharest where he was defeated by
Olivier Mutis and Jose Acasuso respectively.
2004 Seppi made his Davis Cup debut against Georgia
losing to Irakli Labadze in 5 sets. In Kitzbuhel
Seppi failed to convert 10 match points against
Rainer Schuettler in a second round loss, then a few
weeks later Seppi was able to gain revenge for this
loss. In his Grand Slam debut as a qualifer he
defeated Schuettler from 2 sets to 0 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 quarter finals. In Davis Cup Seppi came
back from 2 sets to 0 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 semi
final in Palermo where he defeated defending
champion Tomas Berdych, before falling to Igor
Andreev.
In 2006 Seppi made semi finals on the hardcourts in
Sydney and the grass in Nottingham showing that he
was able to perform well on other surfaces besides
clay. Seppi ended the streak of 4 consecutive Sydney
titles for Lleyton Hewitt and in the process saved 2
match points. Seppi lost against Andre Agassi in his
last tournament appearance at Wimbledon.
At the 2007 Australian Open Seppi defeated American
Bobby Reynolds in 5 sets after saving a match point.
The match was scheduled for the afternoon, but was
put back due to the heat rule where play could not
commence if the temperature was over 39 degrees
Celsius.This match finished at 3.34am 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 Martin del Potro,
and Nicolas Massu losing to Gael Monfils. After
Sunrise Seppi had been struggling with poor form
with his ranking outside of the top 100, he
surprisingly made his ATP Tour final in Gstaad where
he defeated Stefan Koubek and Igor Andreev both in
3rd set tiebreakers and it was his first victory
over Andreev. Seppi lead 5-3 in the 3rd set and had
the opportunity to serve for the championship but
failed to do so losing to Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-7(1)
6-4 7-5. Seppi made his first semi final indoors in
Vienna defeating two time defending champion Ivan
Ljubicic 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(4) 7-6 (4) in the process saving a match
point. Then he scored his biggest win over current
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
Monaco and Nicolas Kiefer in a match where he lead
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.
