2012 ATP Halle and Queen’s Club Recap
By Steen Kirby, TennisEastCoast.com
ATP Halle
Tommy Haas continued his shocking run of stellar play, taking the Halle title today over fellow veteran Roger Federer, 7-6 6-4. The world number 87, who recently broke back in the top 100 at the age of 34, rolled over Bernard Tomic, Tomas Berdych in 3 sets and countryman Philip Kohlschreiber (who had shocked Nadal in his previous round match to reach the final) before taking it to Federer.
Haas showed more than glimpses of his former top 10 self: beating players much his junior and showing not only grit but also great skill on the grass, just as he had shown on clay in Paris and Munich.
Federer will go home disappointed but he still beat Florian Mayer, survived in 3 sets over big bomber Milos Raonic (who couldn’t close him out) and shellacked Mikhail Youzhny to reach yet another final on grass.
Aisam Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer won the doubles title over Treat Huey and Scott Lipsky.
ATP London Queen’s Club
Yet another aggressive David Nalbandian outburst gave Marin Cilic the title in the AEGON Championships, even though he was down 6-7 4-3. The incident occurred when Nalbandian kicked an advertising board in rage around a lines judge and accidentally injured him in the process, causing the linesman’s leg to bleed profusely.
It not only made quite the mess but also resulted in Nalby being DQ’ed and Cilic taking the title to the shock of fans who proceeded to boo profusely all the way through the trophy ceremony. This is not the first time this year Nalbandian has suffered from a violent outburst, as he was fined $8,000 for throwing water at another tournament official during his first round match at the Australian Open. It was an unfortunate incident any way you look at it.
As for the rest of the tournament, it was a week of upsets as top 3 seeds Murray, Tsonga and Tipsarevic all fell before the quarterfinals to much lower ranked players. Nalbandian came from a set down to beat Vasek Pospisil, handled Ruben Bemelmans, came back from a set down to beat both Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Xaiver Malisse, and then rolled over refreshing youngster Grigor Dimitrov to reach the final.
Dimitrov punched above his weight this week as well, as he beat Bobby Reynolds, Nicolas Mahut (who upset Andy Murray in the previous round) and came from a set down to beat the big serving Kevin Anderson.
6 seed Cilic took care of Matt Ebden, Lukas Rosol, Yen Hsun-Lu (who beat Tipsy Tipsarevic in the previous round) and suprising Sam Querrey to reach the final. Querrey had beaten seeded players Julien Benneteau and Denis Istomin along with (Tsonga-eliminator) Ivan Dodig and Olivier Rochus.
The event was also marred by a lot of rain, as can be expected during the British summer and a lot of the match schedules became convoluted. Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor beat the Bryans for the 2nd week in a row to take the doubles title.
