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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And it’s not as if Dimitrov is playing lights out. Yes he is serving very well but that’s it…….
Now let’s see if Rafa wants this or not……..or maybe he wants to go to New York early..
😀 😀
Grigor bringing Rafa back in it
Oh oh!! Cramp Alert. Remember Madird
I just do not get this, whenever rafa plays grigor, he starts playing poor tennis…he even did that in MC …I thought he had reasons in MC but here he looked so confidentn yesterday.. The ROS is back to mediocre, forehand is leaking errors regularly and backhand has lost its aggressiveness due to cof confidence in the overall game…
I won’t be surprised if he gifts this break here
It’s funny how players concentrate te mind against Rafa.
I think the problem is Rafa has convinced himself that Grigor is a future top player and he enters their matches with too much caution……He needs to get that out of his head
I believe firmly that Rafa is not going all out. He does not look himself out there.
I thought rafa had that double break pocketed but dimitrov came up with that incredible drop volley… so the possibility of an upset win is alive
This is too painful to watch…………
not playing that bad in the third set
Dimitrov didn’t serve this well yesterday.
2 breaks!
Now, serve it out Rafa…………Roger’s waiting….
Dimitrov is the other side of the Gulbis coin for Rafa.
Glad he got the break even after missing that backhand at the net…reminded me of Aus open 2012 final..
We have a Fedal match. Can’t wait.
Well done Rafa! Clearly Rafa was not at his best, no disrespect to Dimi. But he found a way to focus in the 3rd set and win.
So, who you got Ricky for Fedal?
will post tonight!
Now that is what you call, winning ugly
he was decent in the third aside from those horrendous break point misses at 4-2
terrible second set from nadal! I hope he can regroup against Roger!
Rafa reverted to his bad old patterns in this match:
1. stood way too far from the baseline to return serve, and as a result really did not have much play on the Dimi serve;
2. delivered tentative attackable 2nd serves and Dimi capitalised;
I am hoping this was just an off-day and he will re-discover his mojo tomorrow.
Vamos Rafa!
exactly RITB
and again going just fir forehand cc and the forehand DTL was way too off!
he returned very bad especially those balls which came to his forehand side!
in second set his balls was dropping too short!
These young guns cannot seem to solve rafa ! gulbis has come close many times and grigor has played rafa tough too but they cannot match his fighting abilities…
Lets hope this was just a rare off-the-radar performance from rafa , just like the one he had against ferrer in madrid…normally its good for rafa to win a tough match , it often brings the best out of him in the next matches…
I pick rafa to win against federer…2 sets if rafa raises his level to what it has been recently , or rafa in 3 even if he is not so special…fed playing erratic tennis..Fed’s chance of winning is him obv serving extremely well, playing aggressive+clean tennis and hoping rafa is not at the level he had at the end of montreal’s