Analysis for Roddick-Fish (Memphis)

Head-to-head record 8:1

We are trying to break our loosing streak by the pick which may look crazy from the first sight. But the battle between two American buddies should be tight and Fish´s odds don’t reflect the true chances in our eyes. Both players started 2008 season with some great results and both of them plays offensive tennis. We expect the lack of opportunities to break and match could be decided in tiebreaker as it was many times between these two in past. Roddick started 2008 by defeating Croatian Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 6-0 and Russian Marat Safin 6-3, 6-3 to reach AAMI Kooyong Classic final for four consecutive seasons. In the final, he defeated Marcos Baghdatis 7-5, 6-3 to win the tournament for three consecutive years. Roddick was seeded sixth in the 2008 Australian Open. In the first round, he defeated Lukas Dlouhy, in the second round he then defeated German Michael Berrer and lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber from Germany in the third round in 5 sets. Roddick then won his 24th career title and his 3rd title at the SAP Open in San Jose where he defeated Czech Republic Radek Stepanek in the final. On the way to capturing this trophy, he also defeated Mardy Fish but it was a very close clash (7-6, 1-6, 7-5) and in fact, Fish won more points in total than Roddick. Roddick won 1 break ball out of 2 opportunities to break while Fish won 2 out of 7 break points. So the luckier, not the better player won last week and we expect the similar match tonight. We don’t really know why Fish should be such a big underdog of this match. Fish started off 2008 quite well at the Hopman Cup in Perth, Australia. Partnering Serena Williams, Fish, won the title. Fish fell to Jarkko Nieminen in the third round of the Australian Open after a code violation caused him to lose his composure. Fish then went on to make a quarterfinal showing at the Delray Beach International before losing to long time friend and wild-card entry Robby Ginepri. Last week, he was defeated by Roddick in San Jose. Both players are offensive baseliners who use powerful forehands and accurate first serve and occasionally use the serve and volley tactic. Fish should be able to keep the match close again and odds around 5.0 are just too high for us.