Germany's Tommy Haas gained sweet revenge by edging out third seed Nikolay Davydenko 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the Australian Open quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Haas, the 12th seed, was knocked out by the obdurate Russian in the last eight of the 2006 US Open, but he recovered from 3-1 down in the fifth set and saved one match point before prevailing in an epic duel on Rod Laver Arena.
Having saved match point at 4-5 in the fifth, Haas broke and then had his first match point thwarted by an overrule from Hawk-eye before sealing victory in three hours and 19 minutes when the Russian's forehand drifted wide.
"(It was) one of my best matches, being down a break in the fifth, I was trying to hang in there," the 28-year-old said in a courtside interview.
"Memories from the US Open came back when I lost 6-4 in the fifth, it was hard to swallow. I don't know how I did it, I'm so happy."
In a match of dashing baseline hitting, single breaks were enough for the two to share the opening sets.
Davydenko, who fell at the last eight stage for a third consecutive year, took the initiative by romping to the third in 33 minutes, but Haas took just one minute more to win the fourth 6-1 and take the game to a tense decider.
The Russian surged to a 3-1 lead when Haas netted a simple forehand but the German, a former world number two before fractures to both ankles sent him plummeting down the rankings, hit back.
He broke back immediately and the pair held until a nerve-racking ninth game when Haas served two double faults to hand Davydenko his match point.
But the Russian netted a backhand to miss his chance and Haas held only to then break Davydenko for a 6-5 lead courtesy of a crunching forehand winner.
Haas appeared to have won the match when a Davydenko forehand was called long but the Hawk-eye replay showed it had clipped the line by the narrowest margin. The German though made no mistake on the next point.
"After 5-4 he played well from the baseline, I did not put him under enough pressure in the fifth set," a forlorn Davydenko told reporters.
Haas awaits the winner of the evening session match between Spanish second seed Rafael Nadal and Chile's Fernando Gonzalez, the 10th seed.
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