Wimbledon 6/26

Wimbledon. (2) Federer, (4) Djokovic, (7) Verdasco, (13) Soderling, (22) Karlovic upsetting (9) Tsonga, and Dudi Sela upsetting (15) Robredo all have advanced to the fourth round.

(24) Haas vs. (11) Cilic

Today I am going to Part I of my Haas Cilic match analysis. Part I is going to be a summary of basically the entire match played on 6/26 and Part 2 will be the tiebreaker of the 5th set played on 6/27.

In the first set It was some great tennis from both Haas and Cilic. The two basically played even tennis for the first two sets but in both Haas was able to get the all important break of serve to win the first two sets. The third set was a different story Haas had a huge letdown and Cilic started to play dominant tennis to easily win the third set 6-1. In the 4th set Haas regained his form and was able to slow down Cilic to force a fourth set tiebreak; however, Haas couldn't win his service points and Cilic used the serve and volley and was able to win the fourth set tiebreaker to win the 4th set 7-6. In the fifth set Cilic went up 3-1 and got the all important break of Haas, however, Haas was able to break back to tie up the match 3-3. They both continued to hold serve until they ended the day tied at 6-6.

For Haas the story of this match was his reliance on volleying. Haas lived and died by the volley all day. When has was volleying well he was winning and when he wasn't he was losing. Haas made a lot of silly volley mistakes and probably should have won the match in the fourth set.

For Cilic the 20-year old proved a lot in this match with Haas. In his last match against Querrey he played back from the baseline and did not serve and volley very much. Against an opponent like Querrey who likes playing from the baseline staying back is a good strategy. However, against a player like Haas who likes to play at the net it is important to be willing to serve and volley to combat his controlling the pace of play from the net. For a 20 year old this tells a lot about his tennis IQ. Cilic was able to completely switch gears in the his 2 5 setters. For a young player this is hard to do because they have not played enough competitive professional matches usually to be able to make switches like this. So whether or not Cilic is able to move on to the 4th round by beating Haas, I think this tournament will be a big stepping stone in his career and I expect big things from him in the years to come.

As promised before I will provide Part 2 of this match analysis after the conclusion of the match on 6/27.