Safin v Haas is probably the pick of today's men's 4th round matches. This is the US Open website preview:
"In case you missed the Opening Night fireworks display here, there’s another one on tap today, as No. 14 seed Tommy Haas takes on Marat Safin. When two huge hitters like this collide, the resulting explosion is most often loud—and seldom short of brilliant. Germany’s Haas has this year won three titles, including two on hard courts. He trails only Federer and Blake in 2006 hard-court wins, and in taking out Robby Ginepri in a third-round, five-set thriller, he showed the tenacious game that took him as high as No. 2 in the world. Safin, the 2000 US Open champion, has been to four Slam finals, winning the 2005 Australian Open, as well. The Russian may be unseeded here, but he is very much a contender, as he proved in taking out No. 4 seed David Nalbandian in the second round. Safin’s play here has been worlds better than his earlier 2006 performances—a semifinal showing at Washington, D.C., was his best season showing. He’s looking better with each round—and the best may be yet to come. Safin is through in four."

They've played 5 times before, Haas leads 3-2. He won in the Russia-Germany DC tie in 1999 on indoor carpet 6-7, 6-4, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 and 6-4, 6-2 that year in Monte Carlo. Safin won 7-6, 6-3, 6-3 in rd3 of the 2000 French Open and then in 2002 he took probably their most important match, in the Aussie Open semis winning 6-7, 7-6, 3-6 , 6-0, 6-2 as Haas struggled with heat exhaustion and cramp in sets 4 and 5. That remains the German's best chance of winning a slam. Haas won on rebound ace in the 2005 Hopman cup 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Incidentally, just read on Safin's ITF profile that one of the places Safin would most like to visit is Scotland



-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 21:45, 2006-09-05