Successful comeback for Tommy HaasOn Tuesday morning, European time, Tommy Haas reached the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne in promising fashion, beating Eduardo Schwank from Argentina 6-3, 6-3, 6-4.
However, despite the convincing final result, it was Schwank, making his Australian Open debut, who initially looked to gain the upper hand: Haas was trailing 3-2 when he had to face two break points. But the German saved both of them, won his service game to make it 3-3 and then broke Schwank's service in the very next game. A few minutes later, another break won the first set for Haas, 6-3.
Schwank stuck to his match plan in the second set, mainly hitting long ground strokes. Tommy Haas gladly accepted the challenge, more than held his own in those rallies and broke Schwank's first service game in this set. Haas faced another couple of break points when he was 4-1 and 5-3 up, but he saved them all and then won this set against the world's number 54, 6-3 again.
Down by two sets, Schwank changed his approach as the third set began and tried a serve and volley style. But Haas time and again countered that strategy with some excellent backhand passing shots. An early break seemed to decide the match in favour of Haas, but Schwank managed to come back and tied things in the very next game. Haas broke the Argentinian's service game again but then failed to make it 5-3, carelessly allowing Schwank to draw level at 4-4. Still, the faster the pace of the rallies, the more errors Schwank made. And so he dropped his serve in the ninth game and Haas wrapped up the match after two hours with his tenth ace.
Tommy Haas will be happy with his start to the tournament, the more so since his elbow didn't give him any problems. In the next round, he'll meet either the Italian Flavio Cipolla or the seeded Russian Dmitry Tursunov.
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