Lawn Tennis Magazine had a chance to sit down and speak with Tommy Haas of Germany not long ago about his career influences, the Olympics and his tennis in general as well. Tommy Haas, seeded 12th at this week's Australian Open in Melbourne, faces the 10th seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the semifinals Thursday night USA time. Tuesday night USA time, Haas went the distance to defeat the third seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-1, 7-5 in the quarterfinals.

Lawn Tennis: Was winning the silver medal in Sydney (Olympics 2000) one of your biggest achievements? Tommy Haas: Yea, it definately was. Being part of the Olympic games was really a great honor. To represent your country was great. The Sydney Olympics overall was so fascinating with being in the village and seeing all the other athletes in the stadium there. The Olympics in Sydney was just breathtaking so being able to win a medal anyways was fantastic; and the medal is safe and sound in my safe and only comes out on special days. Lawn Tennis: Do you have any good memories or something that you learned at the Bolliterri Tennis Academy? Tommy Haas: Yea, I learned how to be on my own in some ways. You learn how to be with people; who you can trust, who you cannot trust in some ways. But I've had great memories there; still a lot of friends. I learned how to compete as well because everybody wants to kind of be the best at the academy and prove that they're going to be the next champion coming up. And definately that was one of my goals as well. And looking back in the group that I was in; seems like I've had the best success out of it so I'm really happy about that. Lawn Tennis: Did you look up to Michael Stitch or Boris Becker growing up? Was there anything that you learned or took away from their games? Tommy Haas: Well Boris Becker, everybody looked up to him, I think in Germany. When he won Wimbledon in '85, you know tennis kind of exploded in Germany. And just the way he was on the court, his charisma was fantastic. I think anybody understands what I'm talking about. Also Michael Stitch: such a classy, good player. His groundstrokes were very beautiful to watch, and he also achieved a lot of good stuff in his career. And you also have to put Steffi Graf in there who's done such amazing things in tennis, so when I was growing up German tennis was tough to beat at that time. You can read the complete interview in Lawn Tennis Magazine. Lawn Tennis' Australian Open Picks