Bringing Down the Haus

As if this draw weren't blown open enough already to begin with, Tommy Haas unseated Novak Djokovic last night for the last quarterfinal berth at Key Biscayne. Nole wasn't anywhere close to his best, but it's not like Tommy was trying to leave the door too open for him to mount much of a comeback either, a la Dominika Cibulkova against Serena earlier in this tournament.

The resident tour veteran was lights out, especially in the first set, hitting incredible passing shots and utilizing the slice and his aesthetically appealing one-handed backhand down the line to throw Djokovic for a loop. Let's all remember that our favorite German in 34 YEARS OLD. (It's about 82 in tennis years, according to my own brand of math where I choose random numbers.)

Here are other reasons to be obsessed with Grandpa Tommy:

• He's beaten the Top 2 players in the world on their respective favorite surfaces in the last 8 months
• He's in the Top 20 ATP rankings for the first time since May 2010; the first time he reached that milestone was in February of 1999(!)
• He wears a lavender shirt with a backwards baby blue baseball cap and hot pink wristbands

Kudos for pulling off the look though.

If those three reasons (particularly the last one) weren't age-defying enough, I'll never be able to convince you of Haas' resurgence. Here's to hoping he goes all the way to win his second ever Masters title, first since 2001 in Stuttgart, now an ATP 250 event. Damn, he's old.

Leave some love for Tommy by commenting on that sweet backhand, or his shirt, or his abs, or whatever. In the meantime, be mesmerized by Haas' oscillating rankings history.

(Update: one step closer for Tommy! He pummeled Gilles Simon earlier tonight to reach the semis.)