Analysis for Roddick-Karlovic (ATP Queens)

Head-to-head record 3:1

The Queen´s Club quarterfinal will bring the battle of two towers. Ivo Karlovic will face Andy Roddick for the fourth time in his career (second match-up on grass). In 4 matches, they have played 7 tiebreakers! And we think that similar scenario is about to come today. Karlovic´s primary strategy is serve-and-volley, and he is considered one of the best servers on tour. His height enables him to consistently serve with high speed and unique trajectory. He has won four ATP singles titles and has also defeated several highly ranked opponents including Roger Federer (who was ranked No. 1 at the time), Lleyton Hewitt, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez, or James Blake. Thanks to his killing serve, he is able to keep the match close with everyone as his matches usually end up in tiebreakers. As we said yesterday, American bomber is an offensive baseliner, and is known for his powerful first serve. As for his second serve, he usually employs a heavy kick serve, then tries to use a variety of spins, slices, and angles in the rally to throw off his opponent and position himself for a winning shot. He is noted to use heavy topsin on both his serves and his twist serve is probably the highest-kicking serve anyone hits. Roddick will also occasionally use the serve-and-volley tactic on both first and second services to surprise his opponent, though he generally prefers to remain near the baseline after a serve. His playing style is suited well to grass but he wasn’t that impressive in the last round against Hewitt. It was a tight battle and Hewitt could win easily. Roddick is still slight favourite against Croatian giant but odds above 3 are too high for us. Karlovic is our favourite for the breakers, if there will be some (which is very likely).