Haas Continues Vintage Form in Munich Quarters

By Erik Gudris

Photo Credit: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images

(May 4th, 2012) For Feliciano Lopez, he might take some small comfort knowing he's not the oldest player left in the draw in Munich.

That honor belongs to German wildcard Tommy Haas who at age 34 is showing off some of the vintage form that took him all the way to No. 2 in the world. Facing off against Marcos Baghdatis today in the BMW Open quarterfinals, Haas in the first set was nearly untouchable, especially on his backhand side as he hit a mix of perfect drop shot and groundstroke winners, especially going down the line off that wing, to easily take the first set 6-1.

Haas came back down to earth a bit in the second set and had to fight off several break points in his opening service game before leveling the set at 1-all. Baghdatis took care of his own serve and didn't face a break point while forcing a set point against Haas's serve at 5-6. Haas saved the point with another backhand winner and went on to force a tiebreak. But untimely errors from the Cypriot gave Haas the advantage as he went on to win 6-1, 7-6 to reach his first ATP semifinal since Los Angeles in 2009.

Haas will now face No. 3 seed Marin Cilic who battled against No.6 seed Mikhail Youzhny for nearly three hours in a see-saw tussle that saw Cilic claim the first set and have a match point in the second set before eventually losing the set in a tiebreak. Two backhand errors in a row from the Russian gave Cilic a 4-2 lead in the final set; a lead Cilic didn't let go of as he broke Youzhny one more time to complete a 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 win.

"In the second set, Misha was playing unbelievable," Cilic said later to ATP.com. "He saved a match point with an amazing backhand down the line. What I was happy about today was that I kept my level going. Even though I lost my serve at the beginning of the third set, I got the momentum back and I think that was really crucial."

Cilic had only won three tour matches all year before Munich and is now into his first semifinal of the season. Haas won their only other meeting at Wimbledon in 2009 in a five set match that Haas won 10-8 in the final set.

The second semifinal will feature 30-year-old Feliciano Lopez who put on a serving clinic against young Australian Bernard Tomic. Despite Tomic having won their only other meeting at the Australian Open back in 2011, it was Lopez who looked at ease on the red clay as he bombed down a total of 14 aces and never faced a break point against him as he claimed a 6-4, 6-2 win.

Lopez will meet another German in Philipp Kohlschreiber who had no trouble in the first set against Australian qualifier Marinko Matosevic before getting involved in a testy second set that ended up in a tiebreak. Kohlschreiber hung on to complete a 6-0, 7-5 win.

Lopez leads the overall head to head 3 to1 versus Kohlschreiber though the German won their last meeting in Cincinnati last year.