Analysis for Serra-Starace (Moscow)

Head-to-head record 0:0

Frenchman Florent Serra will challenge Potito Starace of Italia in the first round in Moscow. Serra has been struggling this year having a poor record of 14 wins-23 losses. He has dropped out of top hundred for the first time since summer 2005. As of June 26, 2006, he was ranked #36 in the world, the highest he has ever been ranked. He managed to win two ATP titles, one on clay (Bucharest) and the second one on hard surface (Adelaide). He is a right-handed player with versatile style of play which enables him to compete on all surfaces. The strength and power of his shots were used to be his biggest weaknesses but he has been working hard on it and improved these weak points. His current form isn´t impressive but we believe he is a better player for hard courts than his Italian opponent and if some breakdown in his results is about to come, it should be against such a weak hard-courter like Starace is. He has never won a single title in his career and the most memorable parts of Starace's career were when he reached 2 career ATP finals, both in 2007. He lost in Valencia to Nicolas Almagro and later in Kitzbuhel to Juan Monaco. He is a pure clay-courter with defensive style of play and we believe he is not able to defeat solid hard-courter such as Serra in Moscow. Current odds are worth taking for us.