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12/2/08 7:39 PM | Ricky Dimon
TennisTalk, throughout the off-season, will recap the ATP's best matches in 2008. Part 4 features Gilles Muller at the U.S. Open, where he posted three remarkable wins in-a-row en route to the quarterfinals.
Three years after sending shockwaves through New York by stunning Andy Roddick in the first round of the 2005 U.S. Open, Gilles Muller was once again up to his old tricks at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Having fallen off the tennis map and having considered retirement in the intermediate, Muller again came out of nowhere. Ranked 130th in the world, the otherwise unknown player from Luxembourg had to win three qualifying matches just to get into the U.S. Open main draw.
He did, and his fortnight in New York really started to catch fire in the second round. Going up against a relatively in-form Tommy Haas, who had taken out Richard Gasquet in his opener, Muller quickly found himself down two sets to love. In stunning fashion, Muller stormed back to win the final three sets 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-3.
The best of all of Muller's U.S. Open matches--and one of the best matches of the entire tournament--came next, against Nicolas Almagro on the court that has an uncanny propensity for epic encounters, the Grandstand. For a second straight time, Muller found himself down two sets after dropping the first and second 7-6(3), 6-3. Not to be denied, Muller came up huge in the clutch moments and eventually prevailed 7-6(5), 7-6(6), 7-5 in the final three frames of play. He even saved two match points while serving at 4-5 in the fourth set. Each man broke serve only once in a match that lasted just over four hours.
"I got the feeling that American people are not really supporting one player, but they just want a big show," Muller explained. "I think that's why both of us, Nicolas and me today, that's what we did.
"There were moments where I thought, should I still keep playing," Muller said of his extensive slump. "At the Challenger level, you're losing money. But winning three matches in the main draw here, it's pretty amazing. I never won two matches from two sets down before."
As if all of this wasn't enough, Muller's flair for the dramatic popped up again in the fourth round against heavily-favored Nikolay Davydenko. The underdog didn't need five sets this time, but it went as close to five as a match can get. Muller prevailed in an absolutely outrageous fourth-set tiebreaker 14 points to 12.
Only then did Muller's dream run end at the hands of No. 2 seed and eventual champion Roger Federer, but not before the Swiss needed two tiebreakers to dispatch the improbable quarterfinalist. "It was really difficult today," Federer admitted. "He had a fantastic tournament."
You can say that again.
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