ATP Halle Tennis Men`s Singles Preview

The grass court season gets underway with this traditional warm-up tournament for Wimbledon. And this year’s Halle provides us, at the time of writing, with the delicious prospect of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer meeting for the first time on grass since their classic Wimbledon final in 2008. This must be in doubt to a certain extent, as Nadal is once again highly likely to make the final at Roland Garros, and could conceivably pull out of this tournament. But hopefully we will see Rafa in Germany...will we see a dream Federer / Nadal final, though?

There is a strong field for this year’s Halle tournament, and this is in fact the strongest competition in its history. There are at least eight seeded players who are in with a realistic chance of going deep into the draw, and all of them are pretty strong grass court players.

Aside from the obvious candidates of Nadal and Federer, two names particularly stand out to me. The first of these is the Canadian Milos Raonic, who is slowly but surely beginning to fulfil his undoubted and much vaunted potential. A quarter-finalist at the French Open, Raonic performed very creditably against Novak Djokovic on his worst surface, and will be hoping to achieve some good results as Wimbledon. A huge server who hits the ball big off the ground as well, Raonic has the game to win a Slam eventually, even if he does lack a little in subtlety at times. He will be a test for anyone that meets him at Halle.

The other dangerous floater possesses a similar game to Raonic. Jerzy Janowicz was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year, and has the sort of imposing game that can trouble anyone on grass. Janowicz hasn’t really kicked on since his performance at SW19, but he unquestionably will be pleased to be getting back on a faster surface after the clay court season. I certainly wouldn’t bet against him going deep into this tournament.

Elsewhere, Richard Gasquet is a former Wimbledon semi-finalist and a very classy player, still ranked in the world’s top fifteen, Mikhail Youzhny is another world top twenty player who has produced some of his best tennis on grass, the extremely experienced Tommy Haas excels on grass, and Kei Nishikori impressed during the clay season. But can any of them hope to topple Federer, who has won here six times previously along with his seven Wimbledon titles, or two-time Wimbledon winner Nadal?

I feel that of the two, Nadal will be more vulnerable at Halle. His grass results in the last couple of seasons have been nothing short of disastrous, and he will have come into this tournament straight off clay with little or no time to become accustomed to the conditions. Nadal is there to be taken sometimes on grass, and I can see him losing before the final here.

Federer will be delighted to be back on what is probably his best surface, certainly in terms of titles, and I’m backing him to win another Halle title to warm up for Wimbledon perfectly.

Tip: Roger Federer to win

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05/06/2014     © Frixo 2026