Tommy Haas Ousts Reigning Hamburg Champ Gilles Simon

Written by: Staff on 18th July 2012

Tommy Haas Ousts Reigning Hamburg Champ Gilles Simon

epa03302775 Germany's Tommy Haas in action during the match against Russia's Igor Andreev at the ATP Tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, 10 July 2012. EPA/MARIJAN MURAT |

(Original Story: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2012/07/29/Hamburg-Wednesday-Ramos-Beats-Rosol.aspx)

Wild card Tommy Haas rallied from a set down to oust second seed and reigning Hamburg champion Gilles Simon 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the second round of the bet-at-home Open – German Tennis Championships 2012 on Wednesday.

Haas capitalised on five of his seven break points and won 51 per cent of his second serve points to seal the upset victory over the World No. 12 in two hours and six minutes. He improved to 3-1 against Simon, facing off against the Frenchman for the first time in four years.

“I don’t take anything for granted. I’m really a happy guy. I’m happy to have the chance to be playing at this level after a tough injury again,” said Haas.

“I didn’t know if I was able to reach that level again and right now I’m playing at a pretty high level. And I think sometimes the matches that I have won show that at least, which is nice. It’s a nice momentum to have again, a nice feeling obviously.

“It doesn’t come for free. Nobody hands it to you. You have to work hard for it and I’ll take it and I’m just going to try to continue this good run as long as I can and just hope to play to good tennis.”

The 34-year-old German is through to quarter-finals at the ATP World Tour 500 clay-court event for the first time since 1999. His best result in Hamburg came on his debut in 1997, when he reached the semi-finals.

For a place in the last four, Haas will play countryman Florian Mayer. The No. 7 seed cruised past Robin Haase 6-2, 6-1 in 56 minutes. Mayer did not face a break point, winning 19 of his 21 first serve points.

Mayer, coming off a quarter-final run at Wimbledon (l. to Djokovic), is looking to reach his first tour-level semi-final of the season. He said of his chances against Haas, “Maybe like 50-50. We know each other very well. He played really good this year on clay and on grass, so he’s in good shape, but me too, so it’ll be a good match.”

Fourth seed Marin Cilic dismissed Federico Delbonis 6-3, 6-2, breaking the Argentine qualifier three times to move through to the quarter-finals in 81 minutes.

Cilic is bidding to win his third title in his last four tournaments, having captured the AEGON Championships in June (d. Nalbandian) and ATP Vegeta Croatia Open Umag (d. Granollers) last weekend.

“The challenge is to keep playing well as I played pretty good tennis last week and also a couple weeks back on grass,” said Cilic. “Coming here is not easy; I came here Monday and I’m playing Tuesday, Wednesday, so it’s just the challenge to continue to play well and try to be focused as much as I can. Then we’ll see how long I can stay in the tournament.”

Up next for the Croat is Albert Ramos. The Spaniard defeated Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 7-6(8) 4-6, 6-3. Part of the match was played under a closed roof at the Rothenbaum, due to rain.

The 23-year-old Ramos is through to his sixth ATP World Tour quarter-final (or better) this year. In April, he finished runner-up at the Grand Prix Hassan II in Casablanca (l. to Andujar).

Topics: ATP tennis news, bet-at-home Open - German Tennis Championships 2012, Florian Mayer, Gilles Simon, Hamburg tennis news, Tommy Haas