Analysis for Federer-Karlovic (ATP Rome)

Head-to-head record 7:1

Bit of a punt here again. Federer is currently a bit of a head-case and was not impressive on clay in Monte Carlo. He was close to be defeated by Seppi in the first round and even if he came through eventually, he was eliminated by his countryman Wawrinka in the second. He is simply not convincing and we expect another tight match here. It would be a wasting of time to praise Federer here as we have already written a lot about his enormous skills. The main reason for this pick is his opponent though. Without the words of admiration for his tennis skills, we just wanted to say that Karlovic is a player who has a chance against anyone in the world. Taking advantage of his height, he is heavily reliant on his serve. With a more acute angle from his racquet to the service line, his first serves have a higher chance of coming in, thereby rendering many of them unhittable, let alone returnable. With bad returns from his opponents, he normally just has to put the ball away for a winner without the need of a proper volley. Well, he doesn’t like clay but the wet dirt here in Rome is quite fast and should be well suited to his game. This year, he hasn’t shown anything special but we must side with him at these odds. Croatian giant is 1-7 down against Federer but all their meeting were deadly tight and we think anything can happen again. As we said, Karlovic can easily loose to big underdogs but can also defeat the best players as just a few points usually decide his matches. In this light, odds above 7.5 are worth taken.