What a shame Flo! – Mayer, the last German to be eliminated!
Despite the rainy and windy weather, the spectators at Hamburg Rothenbaum were in a very good mood. 5,500 fans celebrated a true tennis party on the day of the quarter finals. Of course, Florian Mayer – the last German player in the tournament - was the focus of the day. However, in the end, he had to succumb to the extremely hard baseline strokes of his opponent, Nicolas Almagro, and lost 6-7, 6-7.
It was a true baseline firework which Mayer was confronted with in his duel against the Spaniard. Almagro just beat everything that was yellow and moved – and missed more rarely than the German. Especially during the first set, Mayer kept up with his opponent, played offensively and went to the net and deservedly made it to the tiebreak. He even turned a 0-3 lead into a 5:3 lead, however lost track. It was not the first time that Mayer didn’t rise to the occasion when it really mattered and allowed Almagro to win four games in a row in order to take the set by doing easy mistakes. Almagro thus gained self-confidence and played even more aggressively – if that is possible – and exaggerated a little. After a break, Mayer worked his way up to 4-4 and offered the spectators the best tennis entertainment and a courageous fight. However, once again he lost the tiebreak because Almagro raised his level and finally – surely not undeservedly - won the match. The day of the quarter final started with a true tennis drama. Under the closed roof of the Centre Court, Marin Cilic from Croatia and the Russian Mikhail Youzhny fought a battle by every trick in the book which lasted almost three hours. Both had used the first rounds at Rothenbaum to find their rhythm and now fought a very exciting match on a really high level. At the beginning, Cilic quickly found his way into the match and won the first set, but in the second set, also Youzhny had found his rhythm and was even the more active player in the third set. Then, the tiebreak was a real drama. Youzhny was up 4-1 when Cilic won five points in a row and had double match point. However, it wasn’t enough to take the match, because Youzhny worked his way back. Suddenly, the Russian had his first match point, which he converted with a net ball (!). Youzhny was more than relieved and kissed the net cord to say thanks, while Cilic couldn’t believe his bad luck. Actually, both players would have deserved to win the match.
Also the duel between two true friends went the whole distance. Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon know each other inside out from the French Davis Cup team which was quite apparent during the first two sets. Both tried to “arrange” the opponent with long rallies in order to accelerate the speed in the decisive moment. In the first set, Simon was much more successful (6-4), before Monfils equalized. The no. one seed didn’t seem as lively during the match, which was characterized by tactics and love for the game. Surely, also the cool temperatures were not really to his liking. Monfils completely slumbered away the beginning of the third set, so Simon was quickly up a break and, then, couldn’t be stopped, especially since Monfils had started taking a lot of risks. “The early break gave me a lot of self-confidence and things got a lot easier for me”, Simon contentedly said after his 6-4, 3-6, 6-0 victory. Meanwhile, the tennis fans in Hamburg didn’t only cheer for Simon, but also for Monfils, who had become the crowd’s darling during the past days due to his spectacular game and was duly seen off. By the way: at the latest, when the two players met at the net to shake hands, it was apparent that two true friends had been playing each other, they didn’t shake hands, but hugged and kissed good-bye on the cheeks.
Also the great final on the fifth day of the tournament, was quite exciting. At 20:05, Fernando Verdasco and Jürgen Melzer walked on the Centre Court and played a “prime time thriller”. Even an excellent thriller couldn’t be any more exciting. About two hours later, at 22:07, Verdasco prepared for the deciding shot: one of his very dangerous topspin forehands hit the baseline and Jürgen Melzer just starred, stunned, towards the roof. The Austrian had worked really hard for more than 120 minutes, came back from a set down, showed that he had improved his form compared to the previous weeks and even had his chances to win the match. However at 22:13, the dream of making it to another final at Rothenbaum had gone up in smoke. Verdasco’s long line forehand was just unreachable for the player from Lower Austria, while the player from Madrid shouted “Vamos” and played his way into the semi-final by beating Melzer 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. For sure nobody would mind another as exciting match today.
