Roger Federer, the guy that seems to never get old had a tremendous first part of the season winning his 18th Grand Slam title at the Australian while the cherry on top had him accomplishing the sunshine double (Indian Wells+ Miami). With that in mind, he skipped the entire clay court swing only to focus on his favorite surface, the beloved grass court. Having scheduled two warm-up events prior to Wimbledon, Federer went for a first stop in Stuttgart at Mercedes Cup. The first seed of this ATP 250 event, Federer received a bye in the opening round.
Last year, he reached the semis before losing to the eventual champion Dominic Thiem.
Tommy Haas has a certain type of gift for Federer
The draw put Roger Federer in front of Tommy Haas, a 39-year-old veteran ranked 302nd in the world mostly due to inactivity and not due to any lack of decent skills. The German got past Pierre-Hugues Herbert (75 ATP) in the previous round. Earlier today, Haas completed a surreal comeback to stun Roger Federer. The opening act went in the favorite's pocket as Federer breezed past his opponent with 6-2. The second set saw an increasing level of aggressiveness from the German' s side pushing the set into a tie-break. After saving a couple of set points, Federer had a chance to close the match but not on his own serve.
In the end, it was Haas who won the set pushing the encounter in a third decisive act, a quite improbable event at the beginning of the match. While the German started making some nice things on the court, Federer was unable to settle down his nerves. After nearly two hours of play, Haas capped a huge victory on his own serve.
With 6-4 in the third set, he is in the quarterfinals of the event while Federer will have few extra days to adjust his strategy.
Federer generating some question marks
Ater being almost invincible on the hardcourt, the natural thing for Roger Federer should have been a perfect run on the grass court, a surface he likes even more.
After the unexpected turn in Stuttgart, he is now somehow behind the schedule with no other official matches up until next week in Halle at Gerry Weber Open. Practically, he'll miss some matches he was counting on to make some last minute adjustment. As he sais the other days, he was fed up with too much practice, and the weight an official ATP match gives has no comparison term. Now, in the light of the events from Stuttgart, he will take another forced break. Now, instead of a welcome back party, Federer must reassess his plans for the upcoming weeks.