March 27, 2013 | By Long Island Tennis Magazine Staff
Photo credit: Kenneth B. Goldberg
Germany’s Tommy Haas defeated two-time defending Sony Open Tennis champion Novak Djokovic 6-2, 6-4 in the fourth round of the event. The win by Haas was just his second in 14 attempts against a world number one and ended a 14-year wait after upsetting Andre Agassi in the quarterfinals of the 1999 Grand Slam Cup. Haas is now 3-4 lifetime against Djokovic.
“I’m just really happy and proud of that tonight, against such a great player who has been dominating the sport the past couple of years, I really took advantage of the opportunities I’ve gotten,” said Haas. “I think I played extremely well. He gave me a lot of looks, and I took advantage of it.”
Djokovic suffered his earliest defeat of the season. He began the year by becoming the first man in the Open Era to win three successive Australian Open crowns and followed it up by triumphing in Dubai.
Haas will face Gilles Simon for a trip to the Sony Open semis, after Simon defeated the number seven seeded Janko Tipsarevic 5-7, 6-2, 6-2.
“I could have won the first set, but unfortunately Janko played some great tennis when I was up 5-3,” Simon said. “It was very difficult out there, so I’m very happy with my reaction. We had a very tough game to finish the match. It was a very long game. It would have been worse if I was serving at 5-4, so it helped to have more space. He had nothing to lose and I had the wind at my back. I knew I couldn’t be shaky.”
