Roger Federer has been the talk of the tennis world this season, alongside Rafael Nadal, who dominated the tour after Roger's break following his title runs. Expectations are high for him in the grass season due to his rejuvenated style of play. However, his first stop in Stuttgart did not prove to be the best possibility he could wish for, and he was defeated by veteran Tommy Haas.
Federer started the match where he left off in Miami
Roger Federer got off to a flying start in the match and looked totally relaxed, while Haas seemed to be totally unable to hurt him.
Hitting through his glorious backhand with a great deal of confidence, Federer was able to keep the points short and storm to the end of the set, breaking Haas twice in the process which lasted less than 30 minutes. He didn't face any break points and reached double digits in the Ace count.
One interesting point of the match was Tommy's six-year-old girl who was vocal throughout and supported her dad with all she had. However, many would feel for her as she was witnessing one-way traffic with her hero on the receiving end of it. Federer broke once again at the start of the 2nd set, and it looked like we would hear the three magical words, "Game, Set, and Match" soon from the empire.
One careless game proved to be the turning point
After Tommy Haas broke back in the 2nd set, the pair raced through their respective games, and the match went to a tiebreak. Federer held a match point, but was unable to convert it and subsequently gifted the set to his opponent with a double-fault. From that point forward, he looked the second-best player on the court and lost the third set 6-4.
It marked only the second time this season the Swiss star tasted defeat. The interesting point is that both his losses have come in the hands of players outside Top 100 ranking. Evgeny Donskoy was ranked No.116 when he defeated Federer in Dubai, and Tommy Haas was ranked 302 before this tournament.
While many people around the world were shocked and did not believe this result, Federer was not one of them.
"I expected it to be really tough actually when I saw the draw," he said. His next stop will be another warm-up tournament in Halle before starting his quest for the unprecedented 8th Wimbledon title. In my opinion, it's too early to start judging him based on just one loss or blaming his decision to take a long break. Even if he loses his first match at Halle too, he will still remain one of the top three favorites for the Wimbledon title.
