Haas wins Halle and Murray Lifts
The form guide has been set for Wimbledon with tour veteran Tommy Haas and Andy Murray both showing good form on grass court tournaments heading into next month’s Wimbledon championship.
For what has to be a big relief for supporters of the world No. 3 British player, the home town hero outlasted world No. 6 James Blake 7-5 6-4 on Sunday at the Queen’s Club in London. James Blake was last year’s runner up, but the news of the day that a local had finally won the Queen’s Championship. Not since 1938 has a local won the tournament, with this form hopefully carrying through to the All-England championships, where no local has won since 1936. Expect a lot of punters providing him with plenty of home town support.
Tommy Haas required a wild card into the Gerry Weber Open in Halle to upset overwhelming favourite Novak Djokovic. The match ended with a 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-1 score line and gave Tommy Haas his first tour title in more than two years. He was also buoyed by the local home crowd and gave great entertainment to overcome his much favoured adversary.
Haas’ win caps of an excellent run of form of recent weeks where he led Roger Federer at the French Open by two sets to love and over coming the much higher ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round of Halle. Ranked at number 41, he is a big dark horse for the Wimbledon Championships and could prove excellent value against lower priced opponents.
For Novak Djokovic, he is continually denied a grass-court final having run into Rafael Nadal last year at the Queen’s club final. Still hunting for his first title on grass, he will look to the coming weeks to prepare for a good showing at Wimbledon after an excellent 2008.
