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  • Seeds continue to bomb in Rotterdam

    2/22/08 10:43 AM | David Cox
    - Rotterdam is renowned for often producing shock upsets and unlikely winners, the court speed and bounce throws a lot of players and there’ve been 5 unseeded champions in the past 7 years.

    However, it’s unlikely that there’s been a year quite like the 35th staging of the ABN AMRO WTT. By the quarter-final stage, none of the top 8 seeds are left in and this is from a field which started with Nadal, Davydenko, Ferrer, Youzhny, Murray, Berdych, Baghdatis etc

    David Ferrer was the first big name to exit on day 4, surprisingly outplayed by the Mischa Zverev 6-2, 7-5 in just 85 minutes. Ferrer had a terrible start, struggling to cope with Zverev’s tactics of keeping the ball low and getting into the net whenever possible. Zverev was 6-2, 1-0 up before the 3rd seed finally started to produce the sort of tennis that took him to a grand slam semi-final last year. However by this stage, the young German really believed he could win it and took his chances at the end of the second for the best win of his career.

    Davydenko and Berdych followed soon after and suddenly the bottom half was wide open. One man with plenty of support this week is Robin Haase and the new stalwart of Dutch tennis didn’t disappoint in the night session, thrilling a packed arena by overcoming Michael Berrer 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 in a see-saw encounter. Neither player seemed able to seize a strangehold on the match though you always felt Haase’s more aggressive play was most likely to pay dividends.

    Haase responded strongly from losing a first set which he should really have won but squandered numerous chances. He dominated the second and appeared to be cruising, recovering from 0-40 to open up a 3-0 lead in the 3rd. However, once more Berrer worked his way back into it, levelling at 3-3. With the tension mounting, the Dutchman broke once more before serving out coolly, sealing a quarter-final place as Berrer’s backhand slice found the bottom of the net.

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