Injury fear for Baltacha as Federer is beaten

The German, who needed a wild card to enter the grass-court tournament he won in 2009, won 7-6 (7/5) 6-4 in Halle.

Haas, ranked 87th in the world, beat five-times winner Federer after taking a tight first set on the tie break before breaking his opponent in the ninth game of the second to wrap up the win.

At 34 Haas was the oldest player in the singles draw at Halle but belied his age to end Federer’s bid for a fifth tour title of the season.

Having edged the first set on home soil Haas went 5-4 ahead in the second courtesy of two unforced errors by his Swiss opponent before serving out for the match.

British No 2 Elena Baltacha was forced to pull out of her second qualifying-round tie against countrywoman Laura Robson at the AEGON International at Eastbourne yesterday.

Baltacha has a neck injury although she remains confident she will be able to play in the doubles alongside Fed Cup team-mate Anne Keothavong.

The Scot said: “I’m very disappointed because I was really looking forward to playing Laura.

“My neck was really sore during practice earlier today and the even though the WTA physios worked hard to try to get me ready to play, in the end I had no choice but to pull out of the match.

“It’s a tough one to take because I’ve had some bad luck with injuries over the last few weeks but the good news is that it doesn’t seem to be too serious and hopefully I can still play doubles with Anne later in the week.”

Jelena Jankovic and Melanie Oudin will meet in the final of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham today.

Both women made it through to the title match after winning twice yesterday in the rain-affected event.

Fifth-seeded Serbian Jankovic beat Japan’s Misaki Doi 6-3 6-4 in the last eight before following that up with a 6-7 (2/7) 7-5 6-1 victory over Zheng Jie.

Qualifier Oudin started with a 6-4 5-7 7-5 defeat of Irina Falconi and the American showed great staying power to then see off eight seed Ekaterina Makarova 6-4 3-6 6-2 in the semi-finals.

After reaching her first WTA tour final, Oudin said: “I’m pretty happy about this week.

“I’ve been 30 in the world before so it’s not like I can’t get back there again. This week I’m really showing that, playing top-50 tennis again.”