The Maanga

Tommy Haas

The only American in this list that successfully escaped a regressive tennis system with his brain still intact. A player with apparently no weakness and along with Federer represents the dying breed of all-court players in ATP. On current form though, Haas doesn’t deserve to be on this list and makes it entirely based on his earlier exploits in Melbourne and his undeniable talent.

Singled out as a potential multiple Grand Slam winner 6 years ago, Haas has found that tennis has moved past him since his return from a long injury layoff and is trying desperately to catch up with some of the tactics employed in the game by the younger players. Andy Murray’s crafty game drove him so crazy that he appeared to want to lose the match so he can later take revenge on a boxing ring. Slowly he has grown disillusioned about his place in the game’s elite, but still claims that he wants to win a Grand Slam atleast once.

Perhaps the only thing Haas does better than his reckless twin, Marat Safin, is to not give up a match because he is not happy with the color of his opponent’s head band. He has been more successful than Safin to nudge himself to small titles and hope that he gets in shape to face the big guns in bigger tournaments. Although his attitude towards the end of last season left a lot to be desired, his love for Rod Laver Arena should pull him through to the final stages of the open.

He has the tools to win this slam, but nobody can explain why he won’t. No, its not because he can’t defeat Federer.

p.s. I am aware that Haas was born in Hamburg.

Tags: Australian Open

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.