Germany's Tommy Haas captured his first ATP title since 2001, defeating American top seed Andy Roddick 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday to win the US$400,000 US Clay Court Championship.
Haas, who missed all of last year following right rotator cuff surgery in December of 2002, won US$52,000 and his first ATP title since Stuttgart in 2001. It was his sixth ATP title and his first on clay.
"I was pretty close [at the Stuttgart Outdoors] a few years ago, just two points away, so it means a lot to have my first clay court title but even more because of what I've been through," he said.
"I am glad to win my first title since coming back," he said. "I didn't expect it to happen this fast."
The 26-year-old German, who had not reached an ATP final since Rome two years ago, rose to 4-0 overall against Roddick, snapping the American's 12-match winning streak.
They had not played since Haas beat him in Rome in 2002 -- all of Haas' victories over Roddick coming before the German's health problems and before the American's emergence as one of the top players in tennis.
"Overall, the shoulder feels pretty good," Haas said. "A match like this and a win like this over Andy does a lot for your confidence. He's a tremendous player and it's always nice to beat a guy like him. I think my game suits playing against him well. We'll have to see when we play in the future on a different surface to see how we match up."
Reigning US Open champion Roddick had won 18 of his prior 19 matches here, capturing titles in 2001 and 2002 and losing last year's final to compatriot Andre Agassi.
"Haas is a good player with a great feel for the game," Roddick said. "He plays well with pace and he was playing well today. He just played better, it's as simple as that."
Roddick, who won a title last month at Key Biscayne, leads the ATP with 32 match victories this year. He also won twice last weekend to lead a US Davis Cup quarter-final triumph over Sweden.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed