Tommy Haas secured a 1-6 6-3 6-4 victory over Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky on day one of the BMW Open in Munich.
The 39 year old German served 80% of 1st service points in his three set win over the world number 96. The Ukrainian made the more positive start in the first set as he broke twice to grab the first set 6-1 in 25 minutes. The second set saw very few break point opportunities being created, however it was the German who used his one handed backhand to perfection grabbed the break in the eight game to lead 5-3. Haas closed out the second set to 15 to take the second 6-3. The final set saw the experienced world number 455 break in the seventh game for a 4-3 lead. Stakhovsky managed to save two match points in the following game, however he was just delaying the inevitable and after 1 hour and 35 minutes the German completed victory.
It was another disappointing and predictable loss for Stakhovsky, with Tommy Haas rolling back the years in the process. Haas was excited to play his final BMW Open in an interview after the match, “I’m very excited to be back here after many years, on my last run in Munich, Itwas a tough start for me. I think Sergiy played extremely well in the beginning, mixing it up and really letting me guess most of the time what’s going to happen. It took me a while to find my game, and I was happy to turn it around.” Tommy Haas will now play seventh seed Jan-Lennard Struff after he produced a 6-3 6-4 victory over wildcard Daniel Masur. Struff hit ten aces to set up a meeting with Haas in the second round.
In other results eighth seed Thomaz Bellucci thrashed qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3 6-2. While Yannick Hanfmann won the best match of his career with a 6-4 5-7 6-1 win over Gerald Melzer.
