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| Tommy Haas serves to Leonard Mayer (top) |
No. 4 seed Tommy Haas breezed into the 2012 Citi Open quarterfinals with a straight set victory over Argentinian Leonardo Mayer 6-4, 7-5 in a late afternoon matchup yesterday at the Fitzgerald Tennis Center. With the win, Haas moves on to face fellow German Tobias Kamke, who topped Marinko Matosevic of Australia 6-4, 6-3.
Haas has been on a roll of late: The former No. 2 ranked player in the world (2002) defeated Roger Federer in June to win the Gerry Weber Open in Germany, his first ATP title in three years. He also advanced to the finals of last week's International German Open, losing to Argentinean Juan Mónaco 7-5, 6-4 on clay. Currently ranked 35th in the world, Haas looks difficult to beat... I wouldn't be surprised to see him win this year's Open.
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| #4 seed Tommy Haas |
Later in the evening, American James Blake easily handled qualifier Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-2, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal date with #2 seed Alexandr Dolgopolov, who had an even easier time besting Rubén Ramírez Hidalgo 6-1, 6-3. Could this be the year of the 30-something?
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| 2002 champion James Blake |
On the women's side, #1 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova survived an upset bid by Melinda Czink, winning a three-set thriller 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. And to think this year's Olympics was supposed to take something away from the inaugural Citi Open. Dream on.
