Opening Of Gerry Weber Upsets
The opening day of the Gerry Weber Open 2014 saw a couple of big upsets as two of the top players in the tournament, Mikhail Youzhny and Richard Gasquet, were sent packing from the first round.
Youzhny was found wanting against Ivo Karlovic, the Croatian player, while, Gasquet was shown the exit door by the Dutchman Robin Haase who won in the straights sets by 6-4, 6-4.
The defeat of Gasquet against Haase was more surprising because the former is a terrific player on the grass courts. Previously, whenever he had come across Haase on green surfaces, he had won hands down. He was supposed to do the same again, but, that wasn’t the case to be.
Haase’s ability to hit big left Gasquet clueless on quite a few occasions in both the sets and the points that he dropped during those key moments made the difference eventually.
Gasquet didn’t have a great French Open either. He had suffered a third round defeat there, but, that was bound to happen as he had not practised much before that tournament. He had just recovered from injury and travelled to Paris with lack of match practice.
Speaking in the post match interview yesterday, Gasquet revealed that he has established a fresh injury a couple of days ago while training and he was having pain during the match against Haase.
The Frenchman said, “I felt a bit of it (pain). It was hard for me out there, but, no excuses.”
Despite remaining out for a decent amount of time due to injury and getting out early from a couple of tournaments, Gasquet is still the top ranked French player in the world. The 28-year old player’s overall position in the World rankings is no. 11 though.