24th week

The first week of the short grass-court season brought many upsets. As early as in the opening match at Queens Club, the defending champion Andy Murray was ousted by a grass-court specialist Nicolas Mahut, 6-7 in the deciding set. Murray, once unbeatable in the deciding tie-breaks, now has lost four straight matches in the 3rd set tie-break. Last year’s runner-up, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was also beaten 6-7 in the 3rd set (Ivan Dodig)… The tournament ended up in unprecedented circumstances with Marin Cilic [25] as a champion (his 7th title, first on grass). David Nalbandian missed a forehand trying to save a break point and kicked immediately the front of a three-sided sponsor’s advertising board, which surrounds the linesman’s chair. The front board struck the linesman’s left leg – he fell on the ground theatrically like a footballer showing an injury, as he had lately seen too many matches of the European Championships in football (Poland/Ukraine) 😉 Anyway, his shin was bleeding, and obviously Nalbandian was disqualified for a weird outburst, the previous time a player was defeaulted in a final 31 years ago! #. “I made a mistake and I apologise,” said Nalbandian. “I feel very sorry to the guy. I didn’t want to do that. This is a bad situation for everybody that I really apologize for.” Nalbandian bitterly criticized the ATP World Tour in a reference to playing two matches on the same day because of rain delays. Bulgarian biggest hope Grigor Dimitrov reached his first semifinal.
In Halle, Tommy Haas [87] delighted the home-crowd winning the German grass-court championships for the second time in career (13 titles overall). Haas returned to the professional tennis exactly a year ago after a 15-month break and was losing in the first two rounds of all tournaments until Munich a month before. In the last three tournaments he has won 13 out of 15 matches which allowed him to climb 85 places (from No. 134 to 49). “It’s probably up there if not the sweetest one considering the injuries, considering not knowing how much longer it would really go or if I can actually get back to a certain level,” Haas said. “Then seeing how I played this week on grass here and beating Roger. It’s probably up there.”

Finals

Queens Club (250)
S: (6)Marin Cilic d. (10)David Nalbandian 6-7(3), 4-3 def.
D: (2)B.Bryan/M.Bryan d. (1)M.Mirnyi/D.Nestor 6-3, 6-4

Halle (250)
S: (WC)Tommy Haas d. (2)Roger Federer 7-6(5), 6-4
D: (1)A.Qureshi/J.Rojer d. T.Huey/S. Lipsky 6-3, 6-4

Choker of the week:

 Ivo Karlovic, who led 6:5* (30/0) in the 2nd set against Yen-Hsun Lu at Queens Club, the Croat was also two points away at 5:3 in the tie-break and blew a match point at 7:6 in the final tie-break to lose the match 7-6(3) 6-7(6) 6-7(7).

# Disqualifications in finals of the Open era:

Melbourne 1981: P.McNamara d. V.Gerulaitis 6-4, 1-6, 6-5 def.
Queens Club 2012: M.Cilic d. D.Nalbandian 6-7, 4-3 def.