Maybe it was the comparatively cool weather.  Maybe it was the low bounce of the night air.  Maybe it was just one of those days.

Novak Djokovic, as top champions often do, said he played poorly in his loss to the best old man in the game today, Tommy Haas, a sprightly 34 on the verge of 35.

It’s not as if Djokovic hasn’t had his share of problems with Haas before.  Back in 2009, Haas had a mini-resurgence on grass.  He beat Djokovic at Halle, then repeated the feat once again in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon.

The ever-injured Haas has found a spate of good luck and has begun playing at the level that he had nearly a decade ago.  Those injuries have been, in a way, good for Haas, because it’s let him play well into his 30s, where a comparable player, say, a Federer, would have had years of wear and tear.

By the time Haas had carved out a 6-2 lead with a break in the second, Djokovic was just trying to keep in points.  He wasn’t able to be as aggressive as he wanted to be, so he kept the ball in play, but that let Haas dictate point play.   Djokovic would eventually break back to even the match, but Haas applied pressure once again, and broke, then held to win the match.

This leaves Andy Murray as the highest remaining seed.

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Gilles Simon, despite being French, doesn’t play particularly French.  The French are known for their Gallic flair, sometimes preferring style over substance.  Simon’s best friend on tour is one such player: Gael Monfils.  Monfils, by most accounts, tends to play rather defensive tennis, but his athleticism sometimes comes through in shots that look spectacular, but don’t make sense, like a famous jump where his leg are parallel to the ground maybe 4-5 feet up and Monfils attempting to hit a shot underneath himself.   It wasn’t successful.

Meanwhile, Simon has an old school way of playing, especially if old school means the grinding clay play of the 1970s.  Simon plays a lot of shots up the middle and uses his speed to retrieve and retrieve and retrieve.  David Ferrer, despite playing a similar style, is actually far more aggressive but without the kind of power that makes that aggressive style really sing.

Simon lulls you to sleep with his shots, but when he gets down break points, he ups the level of aggression, and spanks the ball hard once or twice, and his opponents are shocked, unable to reach the shots because they didn’t expect, as Robby Koenig would put it, “a sudden injection of pace”.

Tipsarevic had been having a bad year, perhaps due to an injury that he continues to play through because he’s likely to get some guarantee money.  Miami had been his best tournament in some time, and he had a 7-5 first set win over the patient Frenchman.

But Simon kept playing long, dull rallies, and Tipsarevic was relegated to slicing shots back, playing the Simon game, and ultimately cursing himself, unable to extricate himself from Simon’s web.

Simon is the men’s tour ultimate pusher, able to get any ball back, with no particular desire to end a point.  Simon matches are rarely quick.  Points last minutes.   He tests your steadiness.

2013 is shaping up to be a solid year for Simon who doesn’t play flashy, but finds ways to win.

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Andy Murray had an easier time with the steady Andreas Seppi winning 2 and 4.  Marin Cilic continues to work his way back to relevance with an upset of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.  Richard Gasquet also is on something of a comeback trail as he faced his second one-handed backhand opponent in Nico Almagro, and won in 3 sets.

The quarterfinals are set with Haas playing Simon, Ferrer taking on Melzer, Gasquet vs. Berdych, and Murray playing Cilic.