Mark de Jong was arrested at Amsterdam Airport in March 2016, charged with murdering a business partner with whom he had gambling debts. de Jong is still in prison - but time has not passed by for ex-protégé Haase either, especially since the victim was a friend of his.

"Dealing with the situation felt like being in a bad movie," Haase unpacked on the website behindtheracket.com. "I had nothing to do with it, but every article had my name in the headline. I also struggled with emotions, but was suddenly transplanted into the middle of this story." Everything lasted for two years, the press told him that people were selling more with his name. It was a brutal time for Haase, he hadn't left the house for two weeks, was then recognized and walked around with his head bowed. "I was embarrassed: I didn't know: do people know me from tennis or the headlines after the murder?"

A time when things were no longer going well for the former number 33 in the world. In Monte Carlo he played without concentrating and lost, "afterwards I sat in the locker room and cried like a little baby". For too long before, he had kept his emotions to himself.

Will Robin Haase make it into the top 100 again?

Most recently, Haase fell out of the top 100 after almost ten years of almost uninterrupted membership. In 2018 he changed his club, "but the change was too drastic, I lost confidence in my game". He changed again, played better, but still stumbled. "The competition is insane," he writes, "if you don't play at the upper limit of your game, you don't stand a chance against many players."

The 33-year-old is currently only in 184th place, but he is not thinking of quitting. "I'm back to my planning, have changed my racket again. I feel that I have more self-confidence now."