Perfecseun's daily blog

/ / 10 August 2007 / Leave a Comment

Djokovic and Roddick evenly matched up in today's clash in Rogers Cup

Andy Roddick (USA) vs Novak Djokovic (Serbia)

When I checked the singles draw and saw this matchup, immediatley I realized I have not seen these two guys play eachother even though they are both in the top 10. Well, the time is here and who is likely to prevail? It is a tough one except you have a favourite out of the pair but statistics sorts things out and points in the direction of Roddick.

Over the past year, the Roddick game has evolved from power tennis to a more refined approach. He returns better than ever and holds more of his service games. to beat Roddick these days, you have to be a complete player or hope he is not having a good day. The former US Open winner has one purpose going into this tournament, to keep his lead at the top of the US Open Series this year and every match he wins ensures that. Roddick will take confidence from the fact that his opponent is notorious for throwing up a lot of double faults and gives a lot of break points. Djokovic has played 745 service games and yet he has faced 353 break points. That equals a 50% chance for his opponents to get a break point and with Roddick returning well and holding 91% of his service games, Djokovic has to be focused for the all duration of this match if he is to have any hope of toppling Roddick.

Without any previous encounters to go on and these two players being closely matched, one has to be careful with playing huge amounts on the unknown. The market strongly favours Djokovic in 2 sets but that seems a huge mountain for the Serbian. Djokovic has to seriously tone down the number of break points he allows and find a way of breaking the Roddick serve which has been solid especially during this Open Series.

Suggested Bet: Lay Novak Djokovic to win 2-0 sets