Britain). He then lost in the finals to No. 3 seed Dmitry Tursunov, 4–6, 5–7. Dancevic has continued his elevated play into August, defeating del Potro again, Wayne Odesnik, and world No. 35, Fernando Verdasco, to reach the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup where he lost to world No. 2, Rafael Nadal, 6–4 2–6 3–6. This effort raised his ranking to world No. 65, a career-high. He played his first US Open in 2007, and lost a hard-fought three-set match to former world No. 1 and 2000 US Open champion Marat Safin, the 25th seed. Having come through qualifying, whereas in 2006 he was the top seed but failed to make the main draw, Dancevic lost to Safin 5–7, 6–7, 6–7, despite serving for the second set up 5–3 and the third set, up 6–5 in the tiebreak. Dancevic's form took a slight dip in autumn, as he reached second round of the Thailand Open, lost in the first round of Japan Open, and in the second round of the Stockholm Open to top seed James Blake 2–6, 3–6. 2008 Dancevic's ranking allowed him to enter directly into the Australian Open main draw, where in his first round match against 24th seed Jarkko Nieminen he came back from being down two sets to love to level at two sets apiece before losing the fifth 1–6. He was out of action from January with a facet joint strain of the thoracic spine. After returning to play in May he struggled, going 1–1 twice in back-to-back Challenger tournaments in Morocco (on clay) before losing in the first round of the Grand Prix Hassan II International Series tourney. Dancevic's ranking was good enough however to allow him to gain entry into the main draw of the French Open, which marked the first time a Canadian had done so since Daniel Nestor in 1999. He lost, however, in the first round in four sets to unheralded Miguel Ángel López Jaén. Dancevic began his 2008 grass-court tennis season in style, winning the Surbiton Challenger in late May – early June as he defeated Kevin Anderson in the final in three sets. The 57 ATP points he gained saw his ranking jump from No. 111 to 90. At Wimbledon, Dancevic was given a wild-card entry. In the first round, he pulled off an impressive upset in defeating the No. 7 seed and former finalist, David Nalbandian