Veteran German star Tommy Haas turned back the clock to his glory days on Wednesday, putting in a commanding performance to stun top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the second round and enter the quarter-finals of the BMW Open in Munich. While Haas caused the upset in the very first match of the day, the other three seeds in action ensured that the bug was not contagious as Marcos Baghdatis, Marin Cilic and Mikhail Youzhny safely booked their places in the last eight of this ATP 250 event.

Haas, a former World No.2, has struggled with injuries throughout his career and with his ranking dropping to just outside the top 200 at the start of the year, has been relegated to playing in qualifiers and challengers this season. However, the 34 year old gave his loyal fans a glimpse of the player he once was with a 6-1, 6-4 blitz of top seed and World No.5 Jo-Wilfred Tsonga in just 59 minutes. As a reward for his victory, Haas earned a quarter-final meeting with eighth seed Marcos Baghdatis.

Fifth seed Bernard Tomic and 8th seed Marcos Baghdatis were the marquee winners on the opening two days of first round action at the 2012 BMW Open in Munich. There were also wins for 6th seed Mikhail Youzhny and German veteran Tommy Haas while 7th seed and defending champion Nikolay Davydenko continued his miserable run of form with a first-round exit.

Tomic, playing his first BMW Open, was the first seed in action on Monday and recorded a routine 6-4, 6-3 win over Belgian veteran Olivier Rochus. The Australian, coming into the tournament off second-round exits in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, registered his 15th win of the season as he seeks to resurrect his faltering claycourt season after a promising start to the year.

Maria Sharapova ended her horror run in finals, capturing her first title of the year (after losing three straight finals) and condemning World No.1 Victoria Azarenka to her first finals defeat of the year with a comprehensive 6-1, 6-4 victory in the final of the 2012 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. With this victory, Sharapova also extracted some measure of revenge against Azarenka, who had beaten her in the finals of both the Australian Open and Indian Wells earlier this year.

Sharapova, came into this match seeking her 25^th career title, adopted a far more aggressive style of play and secured an early break in the first set. Having been in this situation before in the aforementioned Australian Open final, the second seed did not look back this time around and built on the momentum, converting yet another break point opportunity later in the first set as she wrapped it up with consumate ease.

Rafael Nadal became the first man to win two ATP Tour events atleast seven times when he rode his luck and captured the crucial moments to edge past countryman David Ferrer 7-6(1), 7-5 in a close final at the 2012 Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. The match was riddled with break point opportunities for both players, and Ferrer, who managed to convert only 3 out of his 15 chances will perhaps feel hard done by as he succumbed to his fourth finals loss at this tournament, all of them coming against Nadal.

Rafa, who came into the match with a 13-4 head-to-head record against Ferrer, and having played the better tennis throughout the week, found himself under the cosh early in the match when Ferrer broke Nadal's first service game to give himself a 2-0 lead. The World No.2 though broke back in the very next game to bring the match back on serve. Nadal’s serve was under pressure right through the first set, and he found himself facing a severe examination in the 12th game, as David Ferrer racked up five set points on the 10-time Grand Slam champion's serve. However Ferrer, who had been playing so well until then, matching his more illustrious opponent shot for shot and mixing his game well, failed to convert any of the opportunities and the set made its way into a tiebreak. The six-time Barcelona champion dominated the breaker, serving 2 aces on the way to a 7-1 win to wrap up the set in a massive 93 minutes.

The top two players in the world - Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova - will clash for the title of the 2012 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix as the leading ladies of the WTA Tour notched up straight set victories in their respective semifinal encounters played on Saturday. Azarenka reached her fifth final of the year with a rather comfortable 6-1, 6-3 win over Miami champion and good friend Agnieszka Radwanska, while Sharapova recorded her second straight victory over her conqueror at Wimbledon last year, Petra Kvitova, beating the Czech star 6-4, 7-6(3) in what was a much closer contest.

Azarenka had suffered a scare against the unheralded Mona Barthel in the quarters yesterday, but did not seem to let that affect her at all as the best player in the world blitzed through the first set, allowing her opponent to win only 11 points as she took it 6-1 in just 24 minutes. While the scoreline in the second set was a bit closer, Azarenka dominated and did not allow her opponent a look-in sealing the win and her fifth victory over Radwanska this year.

Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer set up a fourth final between the two in five years at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, by winning their semi-final matches today in straight sets, albeit in contrasting fashion. While Nadal trumped his Davis Cup teammate Fernando Verdasco 6-0, 6-4 to continue his dominant march through the tournament, Ferrer was tested by the impressive Milos Raonic before finally putting it past the youngster with a 7-6(2), 7-6(5) win.

Nadal was ruthless in the first set against Verdasco, bageling his opponent as he dropped just five points on serve enroute to a 29 minute set win. While Verdasco, to his credit, fought back hard in the second test, it would have required a superhuman effort to stop Nadal in this mood. The World No.2 saved three break points in a keenly contested second set, taking his own opportunity in the fifth game to land the vital break. It was smooth sailing for the six-time champion thereon as he held serve to take the set and the match.