Analysis for Melzer-Davydenko (Halle)

Head-to-head record 0:2

This is going to be very interesting match. Davydenko is currently playing in a very good shape as he made semifinals at Roland Garros losing to Roger Federer in a very tight match. But it should be mentioned here that Russian number one prefers claycourts and slow hard courts. He has never achieved any success on grass and we think that it is going to be the same this year. He played twice against Melzer but both of these matches were played on Clay. We must admit that even Melzer can´t be considered as a grasscourter but his carrer record on grass is still much better. Davydenko´s Wimbledon record is 1-5 (he defeated Australian wild card Scott Draper who was ranked as 787 at that time and lost all his other matches - against Falla, Bjorkman, Verkerk, Childs and Kratochvil). Furthermore, he played twice in Halle where he lost both matches (against Seppi and F.Lopez) and his Queens´s Club´s record isn´t better - he lost both of his matches at this tournament as well (against Wang and Knippshild). He also played twice in Hertogenbosh (lost to Kohlschreiber and Canas). This ipmlies that his overall record on grass is far from being even mediocre - he has 1-11 record from the biggest grass tournaments. His style of play is not suited to this surface at all as his main weapon is movement on a baseline. Taking into account that he lacks practise on this surface since he played on clay in Paris up until the semifinal stage, we must say that Melzer is the favourite of this match. Odds above 1.8 could be taken here.

Final result: 6:7,6:4,2:6 - wager lost