Tommy Haas

Thomas Haas was born 1978 in Hamburg. His father Peter Haas, is from Austria and a former successful judoka, his mother is German. Haas started playing tennis with 4. At age 13 he migrated to Bradenton, Florida, to join Nick Bollettieri’s tennis academy. His education there was very successful. Among other things, he was sparring partner of Andre Agassi, reached No. 11 in the junior world rankings, won singles- and double-titles and was among the best at Junior Grand Slam tournaments and the famous Orange Bowl. He successfully completed the Bradenton High School in 1996.

His first breakthrough on the ATP tour already came in 1997, when he reached the semifinal in Hamburg. In 1998 Haas was plagued by a lot of injuries, but came back even stronger in 1999, when he reached the semifinal in Melbourne, losing to JewgeniKafelnikow  in three sets. He went on to win his first ATP tournament in the spring in Memphis.

In the year 2000 Tommy played overwhelmingly at the Olympics in Sydney, reaching the finals, celebrating the silver medal in the end.

In 2001 Haas was victorious at no less than 4 ATP tournaments; 2002 he reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and finished the year as No. 2 in the world.

Another long injury break cost Haas 15 months, but in 2006 he finally found his winning ways again, triumphing 3 times (Delray Beach, Memphis and Los Angeles). He won 49 of his matches,l the second best number in his career.

Haas finished 2009 in the Top 20, once again as best ranked player from Germany, holding this distinction for the seventh time in his career and the fourth time in a row. In June, Haas won his first title on gras, when he beat Koubek, Tsonga, Zverev, Kohlschreiber and finally Novak Djokovic in Halle. With this victory, Haas is one of the few players with title-wins on all surfaces.

2012 saw one of the greatest comebacks in tennis history. It took Haas only 8 months to get from world ranking position 202 to 21. Tommy reached the semifinals in Munich and reached – having had to qualify – the third round at the French Open. His biggest moment, however, came in Halle. After beating Tomic, Granollers, Berdych and Kohlschreiber, he faced none other than Roger Federer in the finals. Haas beat the living legend in two sets. Haas then went on to reach the finals in Hamburg and Washington. The ATP named Haas “ATP Comeback Player of the Year 2012” for his outstanding achievements that year.

rigor Dimitrov would seem to have it all by the standards of modern celebrity: movie star looks, the richest and most glamorous girlfriend in tennis, a single-handed backhand that gets better by the day. And, now, a strawberry cake shoved in his face on Campo Centrale in front of thousands of his adoring fans.

The stunt, conjured up and carried out by his eccentric Australian coach Roger Rasheed to celebrate the Bulgarian's 23rd birthday on Friday, came moments after a quick retirement win over the injured Tommy Haas that put him into his first Masters 1000 semi-final and shortened his odds for the French Open, which starts on Sunday week.

If he were to win the final here on Sunday, Dimitrov, the youngest player in the ATP world top 20, could move up four places into the top 10. That would be some statement going to Paris.

"Very tasty," is how Dimitrov described his slapstick moment. "I just cleaned up. You have to be presentable. It definitely was one of the most memorable days of my life. It was a bit unfortunate the way it ended up [not the cake-throwing; Haas quitting with a shoulder injury after 36 minutes and losing the only set 2-6]. But I'm just a happy birthday boy.

"At the same time, I don't want to stop my progress here. I've come to the tournament healthy and confident. It's a nice way to bounce back from last week [in Madrid, where he succumbed meekly to Tomas Berdych, the player he beat here in the third round on Thursday]."

Across the draw from Dimitrov is another gilded youth, Milos Raonic, also 23. The Canadian was the first player to progress from the quarters, beating Jérémy Chardy in just over two hours on the unreliable clay of the Grandstand arena, to book a semi-final against Novak Djokovic.

Raonic was in danger of squandering a first-set advantage (as Roger Federer did against Chardy the day before), but he was too strong for the Frenchman in a solid closure and won a ragged match 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.

Djokovic beat David Ferrer 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in a gruelling quarter-final and, although he wobbled in all three sets, double-faulting on his first match point, he broke down the Spaniard's legendary resistance and looked to have recovered from the wrist injury that impeded him in the semi-finals in Monte Carlo against Federer.

Physical degradation is the tough-to-figure component in assessing where the rest of this season, and indeed the game, will go. None of the players who have ruled tennis for the past several years has totally avoided ill health, injury or inconsistency lately, while younger rivals are growing daily more assertive.

"All the so-to-speak young guys," Dimitrov said, "we are all fighting to come on court in big matches and challenge in tournaments. It's a step of progress for us but, at the same time, everyone is pushing his own way. Everyone wants to get to the top. It's a battle. I feel physically pretty good. I still had to chase a lot of balls down. It's a good preparation for the French Open.

"It was the first time I played on that court and I imagined all the statues around me were talking to me. No, seriously, you've got to be able to play under any circumstances. Mentally I've been stronger, to hold my ground on the court. My mental side has improved a lot but there are so many other components. This is what's been happening for me in winning close matches. It really helps me in tight moments."

Although youthful success excites fans and commentators looking for the next great player, it is the familiar faces who still dominate the tour, a point Andy Murray made when he turned 27 on Thursday, having just beaten the 32-year-old Jürgen Melzer [and then having his birthday cake and not eating it]. Rafael Nadal was quick to support that view after turning back the challenge of Mikhail Youzhny, although he conceded that winning was becoming a chore. "Get used to it," he said, when it was put to him he looked to be struggling more often than in his gilded past.

While respectful of his sport's giants, Dimitrov (who came desperately close to beating Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open this year) is part of a gradually changing landscape. For only the second time in a Masters 1000 event, two players born in the nineties, himself and Raonic, reached the quarter-finals; Raonic figured in the previous rare clash of youth, when he beat his 23-year-old compatriot Vasek Pospisil in Montreal last year.

So Dimitrov and Raonic – as well as Kei Nishikori, who had the better of Nadal in the Madrid final before retiring injured, but is newly arrived in the top 10, Asia's first – are going against the perceived wisdom that this is a good time to be older and wiser on the tennis court.

Nevertheless, it cannot hurt for a young man with the world at his feet to be momentarily reminded that life is not always a bowl of cherries; sometimes it is a face full of strawberries.

Injury is the spectre that stalks every professional athlete. It is not the playing, though that is demanding enough, but the training: the hours of kicking balls, or hitting them, or bowling them, and the running, twisting and stretching. The human body was not designed for professional sports, even those, like Usain Bolt’s, that appear to be.

On Monday Wimbledon welcomed back two players who have suffered more than most: Tommy Haas and Janko Tipsarevic. Since Haas, now 37, has been on the circuit for 20 years, it is hardly surprising his body sometimes rebels, but it started breaking down in his 20s. That he has twice been named comeback player of the year says much. Shoulder injuries have been the  big problem costing him the 2003 season, most of 2010 and last year.

The German returned to action earlier this month but is working his way back from 861st in the rankings. He played the Serb Dusan Lajovic, 25 years old today and one of those players who is established in the top 100 but struggling to crack the top 50.

Haas took the first two sets, 6-2, 6-3, but Lajovic came back to win the third  6-4. However, just as it seemed the stamina of Haas, much the elder and just off a long lay-off, would be tested, Lajovic suffered an ankle injury and needed a medical time-out. He resumed, but Haas took the set 6-2 and the match.

He is the oldest man to win a singles match at Wimbledon since a then-38-year-old Jimmy Connors in 1991.

Tipsarevic has been less injury prone than Haas, but when the curse struck it was severe. In January 2013 he fought his way into the fourth round of the Australian Open but suffered a foot injury and had to retire mid-match. As the season wore on he endured, he said later, “more than 200” anti-inflammatory injections before finally succumbing to surgery on what by then had been diagnosed as benign tumours in his left heel. That was in the autumn of 2013.

“It was a complicated operation, but everything went well,” he posted on Instagram. He added he could not wait to get back on court. It proved a long wait, 17 months. The operations had taken away “80 per cent of my sole”.

At his peak, in April 2012, Tipsarevic was eighth in the world, now he is 478th. Facing him was Marcel Granollers, of Spain, world No 72, but once a top-20 player himself.

The pair found themselves on court seven, next to the Pergola Cafe with its constant stream of passing visitors. Those that stayed, their attention perhaps drawn by the Spaniard yelling with each shot, saw the rustiness of Tipsarevic betray him. Emblematic was the final shot, with the Serb sending a loose forehand  into the tramlines to go down 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

“My goal and dream would be to come back to the top 10,” Tipsarevic, 31 last week, said when he returned in March. That looks a long way off.

Thomas Haas moved to Bradenton, Florida to attend Nick Bollettieri Academy at age 11 and has been there full-time since he was 13. Finished high school there in May 1996.

He is a professional tennis player, reaching a career-high ranking of #2 in 2002. He broke his right ankle in December 1995 (surgery on January 10 1996) and his left ankle in December 1996, which also required surgery. Missed entire 2003 season due to 2 shoulder operations.

Earned silver medal in singles in 2000 Sydney Olympics.