We’ve all had them – terrible days when nothing goes our way. The harder we try, the worse it gets. Ask Mikhail Youzhny. Actually – don’t. Not for a while. Private grief and all that. In the fourth round against Tommy Haas, the Russian had the kind of afternoon he will want to forget. But by winning 6-1, 6-1, 6-3, 35-year-old Haas notched up a whole stack of landmarks – completing his set of career Grand Slam quarter-finals by finally making it to the last eight of Roland Garros at the 12th attempt, becoming the first German to reach the quarters here since Bernd Karbacher and Michael Stich 17 years ago, and perhaps most significantly becoming the oldest Slam quarter-finalist since Andre Agassi at the 2005 US Open.
There was little indication such a crushing result could be on the cards from their third-round matches. Youzhny, the No.29 seed here, had an excellent straight sets win over the No.8, Janko Tipsarevic while Haas set an Open Era record for the most match points ever needed – 13 – during his triumph over John Isner. But of course Haas has built a strong clay season, culminating in his 14th career title on the red dirt last month in Munich, while Youzhny’s progress here is only the second time he has won back-to-back matches on clay this season. Then again, the Russian led their career jousts 4-3 coming into this one, with his wins including three of the last four matches and both of their clay court meetings, most notably in Rome last month.
You would not know it from their fourth-round match here, but Youzhny had not even dropped a set to Haas in either of those previous two clay court meetings. For two sets the Russian was an explosion of inaccuracies. Both players opened with breaks, yet the first set was gone in an astonishing 22 minutes, with Youzhny’s errors outnumbering his winners by 11 to 1 – not a ratio likely to bear fruit.
After taking a 1-0 lead in the first, Youzhny lost the next ten games before troubling the scorers again, by which time the second set was out of his grasp. Little wonder Boris Sobkin, his coach for the last 20 years, could be seen at courtside repeatedly gazing at his feet and shaking his head. When the double break came in the second set, Youzhny went back to his chair and smashed his racquet to pieces. Then he covered his head with his towel, and although his face could not be seen it was obvious this not a moment of tranquil repose. Very little improved as Haas strolled on, with Youzhny gifting the set point courtesy of a double fault.
In the third the Russian was at last able to make more of a match of it, digging in and producing some winners. At 2-3 he fought back from 0-40, but a fourth break point proved too much. Next game he took Haas to 15-40 with a fabulous forehand return, but could get no further. Youzhny was blitzed by the German in 84 minutes, and it is a match he will not be able to forget fast enough.
Asked about his age-related achievements Haas said: "These are cool stats to hear. Makes you proud. But what I'm really proud about is making the quarters here for the first time. You get smarter about how you train, how you eat, how you recover. That's why you see more people in their early and mid-30s doing so well."
French Open: Hass makes his way to the quarters
