Initial item when clicking on ComboBox to RE-open popup

In hosts that support it, when you click on a ComboBox to pop up its menu, you can scroll up and down within the menu, using the up/down keyboard arrows, to select a new item that way instead of via the mouse. However, suppose you select an item, then later go back and click on the ComboBox to open it again. Now, the item that was previously selected is checked, but if you hit the down arrow, it highlights the second item in the list, not the one below the selected item. It appears that the current item (as far as the keyboard arrow navigation goes) always reverts to the first item in the list, rather than the item that was selected previously. Is there a way to change that behavior so that the navigation starts with the currently selected item, instead of the first item in the list?