Haas criticises Wimbledon's fifth set policy

By Pritha Sarkar

LONDON (Reuters) - Germany's Tommy Haas took a swipe at Wimbledon's policy of not playing a tiebreak in the fifth set after he had to battle for two days to secure a place in the fourth round of the grasscourt championships.

The 24th seed saved two match points on Friday when the umpire suspended play on a gloomy Court One at 9:33 p.m. British time.

That left Haas stranded at 6-6 in the fifth set overnight and he needed to toil in the sun for another six games on Saturday before completing a 7-5 7-5 1-6 6-7 10-8 win over Croatian 11th seed Marin Cilic in four hours 28 minutes.

"It has never happened to me that we stopped playing at six-all in the fifth," said Haas, who will face Russia's Igor Andreev in the fourth round next week.

"We should have a tiebreak at six-all in the fifth like in the U.S. Open. All the grand slams should have this, that's my personal opinion. When you've played so much tennis... it's really draining.

REALLY DARK

"It was getting really dark out there (on Friday). When he had two match points at 5-6, I was like, 'Great, maybe he's going to finish me off right before we're supposed to stop due to darkness'.

"Then I played some really good points to come back to six-all.