Friends and familiar foes Roger Federer and Tommy Haas will face each other in the Cincinnati third round on Thursday. The winner will go up against either Rafael Nadal or Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals.
Roger Federer and Tommy Haas will be squaring off for the 15th time in their careers when they collide in a blockbuster third-round showdown at the Western & Southern Open on Thursday. Federer leads the head-to-head series 11-3, including 4-2 on hard courts despite losing the first two times on this surface against Haas. They most recently clashed earlier this summer of the grass courts of Halle (they also played doubles together at that event), where Federer prevailed 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
The fifth-ranked Swiss is back playing with his old, smaller racket that carried him to the Halle title–among, of course, many other triumphs. Testing a larger frame last month on clay, Federer lost in the Hamburg semis (to Federico Delbonis) and in the Gstaad second round (to Daniel Brands). A five-time champion in Cincinnati, Federer rebounded in his opener on Tuesday night with a 6-3, 7-6(7) victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Haas has endured no such dips in form this season, instead churning out impressive results with machine-like consistency. The 35-year-old German is 38-16 for his 2013 campaign, which is highlighted by a title in Munich and a run to the Miami Masters semifinals. Haas kicked off his week in Cincinnati by ousting an in-form Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-4 before hammering Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-1.
Federer arguably played his best set since this spring in taking the opener against Kohlschreiber, but he once again showed some vulnerability in the second. Haas also went into this tournament with question marks, having been forced out of a Montreal match due to shoulder trouble. The world No. 13, though, completely silenced any concerns with ruthless performances against Anderson and Granollers. Federer may not be confident enough to withstand such a barrage of aggressive all-court play, so the fifth seed will have to serve well in order to dictate rallies from the start if he wants to hold off his friend and fellow veteran.
Pick: Haas in 3
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Dimi lost 🙁 but me not much sad coz i got some gifts from mommy.. 😉 and also i think it will be great to see rafa vs fed
yeah , RITB…but we are accustomed to seeing these patterns from rafa whenever he is not feeling confident about his game…rafa often talks about having great feelings and memories about a tournament, he is never at home at cincy so that might have made him a little more unsettle today when he already not finding his rhythm…. I am hoping the dark clouds have elapsed and it will be a bright sunny day as far as rafa’s performance is concerned 🙂
@ clayqueen i never posted on TT but i used to visit that site so often 😉 so i know max guys are rafans .. no dimi delpo n murray fans here 🙁
Maybe there is method to Rafa’s “madness”…………..
He has a tough draw and maybe he is pacing himself, doing just enough to win and get to the next tough encounter. Fed won’t be easy (unless the Fed we saw today turns up), Muzza won’t be easy and Novak definitely won’t be easy…………
i am following tennis since 2010 WTF i m 17: )
And me happy i like to post here my thoughts..
after all a win is a win!
Rafa called Federer “The best of the history” in his presser. What a surprise!
hahahaha
hahaha REALLYYY ?? thats such a shocker :O lol
what else does he say??
But i can’t be sad much.. so Congrats to all rafans and i hope we will watch a good fedal match this time 😉
I just fear rafa playing three taxing 3 setters in a row..esp against murray and djokovic…he needs to be 100% before the open
vamosrafa,
That is what concerns me. This is why I very much wanted Rafa to win in straight sets against Dimitrov. He was five points from winning in that second set. That brought back some bad memories for me.
I also think that maybe he’s not at home at Cincy. He really seemed to be out of sorts tonight. I don’t know that he will ever love this tournament. I do hope that this was just one bad day at the office for Rafa.
If Rafa isn’t at his aggressive best, then this match may well go three sets. I would like to see Rafa get to the semis. I want to see Djoker meet Delpo in the semis. That should be a great match. Murray and Berdy could be interesting.
This business of Rafa playing last doesn’t thrill me either. Djoker, Delpo and Murray will all be playing their matches much earlier in the day. Rafa hasn’t even played a day match. He and Fed will be the last quarterfinal match.
I checked the program schedule and espn2 is showing the match live tomorrow. They wouldn’t dare let anything preempt that one!
@sana, duecy and alex are murray fanatic ! just wondering where they are
Federer-Nadal preview – Federer vs. Nadal preview and pick – https://tenngrand.com/2013/08/16/federer-vs-nadal-xxxi-preview-and-pick/
Dimitrov is good but not consistently so. After beating Nole in Madrid there was so much hype about their meeting at RG and that turned into a damp squib.