French Open Day 7: Tracking the progress of seeded players (Men's singles)

#12 Tommy Haas (Germany)

35-year-old Haas staved off the challenge of American John Isner in a marathon five-setter. With Isner, you almost expect the match to go the distance. Haas was patient and bided his time in the first two sets, looking for the crucial break of serve while holding his own. He took a two-sets-to-love lead before the American mounted his comeback. Isner won the third 6-4 to set up what was to be a dramatic 4th set. Serving at 5-6 to stay in the match, Isner saved 9 match points to deny the German and pushed the set into a tie-break which he won 12-10, saving another 3 match points in the process. One of them was on Haas’ own serve, where he double-faulted.

A visibly frustrated Haas was beside himself at having squandered the opportunity, and Isner took advantage of it by taking an early 4-2 lead in the decider with an early break in the third game of the set. Haas, though, broke back in the seventh game to pull it to 3-4 after which the set went on serve until the 18th game. Isner was playing his second consecutive five-setter after having outlasted fellow American Ryan Harrison just the previous day, coming from two sets down on that occasion as well. That soon began to have its effect as Isner started cramping in the right thigh area which hampered his mobility on court.

He still managed to serve well as he kept dropping the hammer with his powerful first serves. That was until the 17th game where Haas finally managed to break the Isner serve for the third time in the match; Haas converted only 3 out of 23 break point chances that he fashioned. The German came off the break to serve for the match and didn’t falter this time to seal a 7-5 7-6(4) 4-6 6-7(10) 10-8 victory in four-and-a-half hours of play.

#13 Kei Nishikori (Japan)

A very entertaining match for two-and-a-half sets, after which local lad Benoit Paire faded quickly. The Frenchman, with the vocal home support behind him, whipped up quite a frenzy in the first two sets with some exceptional shot-making as they split the two sets. But Paire, the No.24 seed, seemed to wither away as the match went on and the Japanese, who was rock-solid throughout, kept motoring to finish it in four – 6-3 6-7(3) 6-4 6-1.

#16 Philip Kohlschreiber (Germany)

Another German booked his place in the Round of 16 at the French Open when 16th seed Kohlschreiber brushed past Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-0 7-6 6-1. The winners were flowing from the German’s racquet as he broke his opponent’s serve 6 times in the match. His next task is to find a way to try and stop the marauding world no. 1 – Novak Djokovic.

TRIVIA

Novak Djokovic, with victory over Grigor Dimitrov, notched up the 500th match win of his career. He is the sixth active player to do so, joining Roger Federer (899), Rafael Nadal (622), Lleyton Hewitt (574), Tommy Haas (524) and David Ferrer (522).

Kei Nishikori became the first Japanese men’s player to reach the 4th round of the French Open in 75 years after Fumiteru Nakano in 1938, Nakano went on to lose in the 4th round.

Tommy Haas became the oldest man to reach the 4th round of the French Open since 2007.

John Isner saved 12 match points in his 3rd round encounter with Tommy Haas, a new record, eclipsing the previous best of 11 match points saved by Adriano Panatta when he beat Kim Warwick in Rome in 1976. In the 2000 French Open final, Magnus Norman saved 10 match points before losing to Gustavo Kuerten on the 11th.