The legendary success story of tommy haas at the ATP masters tournament in miami continues. In only 64 minutes the almost 35 year old tennis pro duplicated the frenchman gilles simon with 6:3, 6:1 and reached the semifinals.
One day after his 6:2, 6:4 performance against the serbian industry leader novak djokovic, the hamburg native did not stand a chance against the number eleven seed either.
"It is not over yet. I hope that I might even make a step forward, that would be a dream," said haas. For simon, meanwhile, the evening match on center court turned into a nightmare. The usual fighting and running strong right-hander had last won against haas in 2008, this time he was brought forward. "I knew tommy was going to start strong, but i still couldn’t do anything. If he continues to play like this, he can win the tournament," said simon uber haas, who played on 3. April 35 years old.
Haas won 23 of 28 points on his first serve, used his only break point in the first set to take a 5:3 lead, and played like he was in a frenzy in the second set. Once again, the decisive factor was his good all-round game, emphasized germany’s showpiece tennis pro. In addition, he went into the match with a lot of self-confidence after his win against djokovic, haas said.
After his great match against the serbian superstar, he had to work a night shift to answer the many congratulatory text messages and e-mails from fans and friends. "That was really hard work," said haas. Also on the social media pages his gala against the djoker immediately made itself felt. During the 80 minutes of the game, haas’ twitter account increased by 1300 followers.
The american of choice not only drives his opponents to despair in the days of miami, but also gives the statisticians plenty to do. Again and again, they have to dig deep into tennis history to find a story similar to that of thomas mario haas from march 2013. The former number two in the world rankings last reached the semifinals of an ATP master’s in 2006 in paris-bercy.
At his current age, only andre agassi had ever achieved this before. In 2005, just a few days before his 35th birthday, he won the. Birthday, had also reached the final round in miami and a few months later even played in the final against rafael nadal at the masters in montreal.
A year ago, haas came to key biscayne ranked 145 in the world and left the palm island just off miami’s south beach with a second-round loss to radek stepanek (czech republic) and severe knee pain. Haas is now among the top four in the 4.2 million dollar event.
In his current form, he is by no means an outsider going into friday’s semifinal against david ferrer, even though the spanish player has won both of his previous matches and triumphed at the tournaments in auckland and buenos aires this year. "He gets to every ball, he’s always on the move," haas said of the world number five, emphasizing: "it’s fascinating what he’s been doing for years."But this is even more true for him.