At the
1999 Australian Open, Spadea achieved his best performance in a major by reaching the quarterfinals. In the fourth round at that tournament, he defeated the
1995 Australian Open champion,
Andre Agassi. Spadea then lost to
Tommy Haas in the quarterfinals. On September 13, 1999, Spadea achieved a top 20 ranking for the first time. However, from October 1999 to June 2000, Spadea suffered a record losing run of 21 losses in a row. His losing streak led the
Associated Press to dub him "the
Charlie Brown of tennis" . He ended the streak in the first round of
2000 Wimbledon with an opening round 6–3, 6–7, 6–3, 6–7, 9–7 win over 14th seed
Greg Rusedski, in a five-set marathon, which lasted for nearly four hours. Spadea's world ranking fell as low as 237 on October 23, 2000. Working hard on the
Challenger Tour after his fall down the rankings, he successfully recovered and eventually won his only career
ATP Tour singles title in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he defeated
James Blake and Andy Roddick along the way in 2004. He continued his journey back up the world rankings and was back in the top 20 by late 2004, although US Davis Cup captain,
Patrick McEnroe, declined to pick Spadea as his second singles player for the
2004 Davis Cup final against Spain, opting instead for the lower ranked
Mardy Fish. Spadea achieved his career-high world ranking of 18 in February 2005. In 2003, Spadea reached the semifinals of a Masters event in
Indian Wells for the first time in his career, losing to world No. 1, Lleyton Hewitt. He went on to the
Monte Carlo Masters a month later and reached his second semifinals in a Masters series. This helped him reach a career high position of No. 10 in the ATP Champions Race in April. In 2006, Spadea published his autobiographical book,
Break Point: The Secret Diary of a Pro Tennis Player. Spadea criticized a number of tennis players including James Blake and Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe. He called out McEnroe for picking Mardy Fish ahead of him for the
2004 Davis Cup final where the Americans lost to
Spain. Spadea criticized Blake for questionable character during a match where Blake allegedly "trash-talked" him. The book reached the top of the ranks in sports and tennis books during its debut month. Spadea reached the third round at the 2008 Australian Open. In the first round, he came back from two sets down to defeat former world No. 8, Radek Štěpánek. He closed the season by winning two Challenger titles, in Waco and Calabasas. Vince had an injury-stricken season in 2009, plagued by an overuse tendonitis arm issue, as well as a lower extremity staph infection. He won only a handful of ATP-level singles matches before the start of the clay-court season, but reached the semifinals of the Carson Challenger. The
New York Times summarized his career by calling him "the epitome of a tennis journeyman" and then noted that "he has played in 15 US Opens and has never reached the quarterfinals." == ATP career finals==