Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

TENNIS

Federer suffers shock defeat in comeback match

Roger Federer suffered a shock defeat to 39-year-old Tommy Haas at the Stuttgart grass court tournament on Wednesday in the Swiss great's first match after almost three months out of action.

Published: 15 June 2017 08:47 CEST
Updated: 15 June 2017 10:37 CEST
Federer suffers shock defeat in comeback match
Haas and Federer. Photo: Thomas Kienzle/AFP
Haas, a former world number two but now down at 302, won 2-6, 7-6 (10/8), 6-4 for just his fourth victory in 17 meetings against his close friend.
   
Federer, building up for an assault on an eighth Wimbledon title, hadn't played since March, skipping the entire clay court season.
   
It was just the second defeat of 2017 for the 35-year-old, who claimed the Australian Open for his 18th major in January.
   
“I'm not so shocked to have lost. I knew I could lose against Tommy,” said Federer.
   
“He was so good at the end and if I am happy for anybody, then it's for Tommy.”
   
With a combined age of 74, it was the oldest match on the tour since 1982 as Haas, on a farewell to the sport in 2017, made his first quarterfinal since Rome in 2014.
    
“It's always special to play a close friend like Roger on grass, always lots of emotion,” said Haas, who has undergone nine surgeries in his career to mend a number of ailments.
   
“I saved a match point in the second set so was able to play more freely after that. I even shocked myself.”
 
Federer also held match point in his only other defeat this year to Russia's Evgeny Donskoy in Dubai.
   
Haas is the oldest player to beat a top five opponent since Jimmy Connors, at 39 years and five months old, defeated Michael Stich in Memphis in 1992.
   
He is also the lowest-ranked player to beat Federer since number 407 Bjorn Phau at Washington in 1999.
   
Federer, who fired 23 aces in the contest, had match point at 8-7 in the second set tie-breaker but hit a backhand long.
   
The German took his opportunity and converted his fourth set point when Federer double faulted for the first time in the match.
   
Haas controlled the decider, breaking for 3-1 before going on to take the victory on a second match point.
   
He will next face compatriot Mischa Zverev who beat qualifier and fellow German Yannick Hanfmann 7-6 (7/1), 6-2 in 83 minutes.
   
Philipp Kohlschreiber, the runner-up last year, advanced by beating Steve Johnson of the United States 7-6 (7/3), 5-7, 7-6 (10/8) in two hours and 39 minutes.
   
The 33-year-old Kohlschreiber, who lost to Austria's Dominic Thiem in the 2016 final, has won five of his seven career titles in Germany.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ANGELA MERKEL

Merkel condemns Stuttgart rampage as ‘abhorrent’

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sharply condemned a violent rampage in Stuttgart, her spokesman said Monday, calling the brutal attacks against police officers and the looting of shops by hundreds of people "abhorrent".

Published: 22 June 2020 11:54 CEST
Merkel condemns Stuttgart rampage as 'abhorrent'
A sign reading 'Create, don't destroy' in front of one of the damaged windows on Monday. Photo: DPA

“Whoever has done this has turned against their city, against the people with whom they live and against the laws that protect us all,” said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert of the riots that erupted over the weekend.

READ ALSO: Shock in Germany as hundreds run riot in Stuttgart

German authorities have expressed shock over the rampage of an “unprecedented scale” in the early hours of Sunday in the city centre of Stuttgart, where hundreds of partygoers ran riot, attacking police and plundering stores after smashing shop windows.

Two dozen people, half of them German nationals, were arrested provisionally, as police reported at least 19 colleagues hurt.

Tensions built up shortly after midnight when officers carried out checks on a 17-year-old German man suspected of using drugs, Stuttgart deputy police chief Thomas Berger said.

Crowds who were milling around at the city's biggest square, the Schlossplatz, immediately rallied around the young man and began flinging stones and bottles at police.

The groups of mostly men also used sticks or poles to smash windows of police vehicles parked around the square, which is next to the regional parliament of Baden-Württemberg as well as the state's finance ministry.

At the height of the hours-long clashes, some 400 to 500 people joined in the battle against police officers and rescue workers.

In a speech on Monday, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said perpetrators of the rampage must be “prosecuted and punished with all the severity of the law”.

“We must resolutely oppose anyone who attacks police officers, who shows contempt for them or gives the impression that they should be 'disposed of',” said the president.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is due to visit Stuttgart along with his state interior minister Thomas Strobl to take stock of the trail of destruction left behind in the rampage.

Contempt

He also pointed to the worrying trend that police and emergency workers were increasingly coming under attack, both physically and verbally.

“Besides the attacks and insults, there is also disparagement — and that can hurt just like physical violence,” he said, stressing that politicians must stand behind the police.

In a speech on Monday, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sent the same message.

“We must resolutely oppose anyone who attacks police officers, who shows
contempt for them or gives the impression that they should be 'disposed of',”
he said.

Police unions and emergency workers have been warning of authorities increasingly coming under attack as they go about their work.

Tensions have also spilled over from the Black Lives Matter demonstrations
in the United States where officers are accused of being racist.

In a separate incident in Germany's Lower Saxony state, several police officers were injured while enforcing a coronavirus quarantine imposed on 700 residents of a high-rise building.

And the police union DPolG has filed a lawsuit against a columnist of left-leaning daily TAZ over an article titled: “All cops are unfit for the job”.

On Monday, Seehofer said he too was considering filing a complaint against
the writer, warning that irresponsible speech can lead to dramatic consequences.

 

SHOW COMMENTS