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: Win over Nadal, Maiden Masters semifinal In 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 quarterfinals 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 made the semifinals of the 2008 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 semifinals 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: First major fourth round, Maiden singles title, top 25 year-end ranking For the second time Seppi won the Challenger title at Bergamo in 2011 and later in the year followed that victory with his