Jul 22, 2008, 18:37 GMT
Toronto - Patched-together Tommy Haas continued to stretch his tennis dream with an opening win at the Toronto Masters on a stormy Tuesday, beating fellow veteran Carlos Moya 6-3, 6-2.
The 30-year-old German is full of optimism half a year after his third shoulder surgery, convinced that if he can remain healthy, he has a future in the game.
'Basically I'm living my dream, and I'd like to continue that as long as I can,' said the one-time world number two, a quarter- finalist last week in Indianapolis where he lost to champion Gilles Simon of France.
'If the shoulder says at one stage says 'there's no more.' I'll have to deal with that. It's already tried it three times and I'm still here, so it's still pretty good.'
Haas got lucky with poor weather on Day two, advancing along with Simon, a winner over teenaged qualifier Donald Young 6-1, 6-3.
Later matches were forced off court temporarily over fears of lightning, which proceeded a spot of rain which sent sixth seed Andy Roddick to the locker room in the fourth game of his second-round match with Nicolas Mahut.
Other early winner included Croatian Marin Cilic, who beat Czech Lukas Dlouhy 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Simon advanced in less than an hour over American teenager Donald Young 6-1, 6-3.
Haas and Moya go back 11 years to their first meeting in 2007 won by the German in Hamburg on clay. Haas improved to 6-5 in the series as the pair of over-30s met for the first time since 2002. Moya stood on the bubble with a 15-15 record this season before his defeat.
Haas is making his ninth tournament appearance in 12 years in Canada, where he began in 1997 and reached back-to-back semi-finals in 2001 and 2002.
Your Talkback on this Story