ATP - Andy Roddick v Fabrice Santoro

This will be in the night session in the Arthur Ashe stadium today and it will be much closer than most people think. Roddick isn't exactly in a good moment and a 7-4 record in the Wimbledon + US Hardcourt tournaments part of the season for him is simply terrible. On the same stretch last season, he had a 15-4 record, with one title. Also he used to have no problems in beating players out of the Top 10 and now he has been acumulating losses to players like Cilic, Troicki, Tipsarevic and Del Potro. His serve seems not to be as effective as it once was, especially if we see that on his last two losses, Roddick lost sets by 6-1 and 6-2, something unthinkable a couple of months ago.

Now in the US Open, he is going to face Fabrice Santoro, who has a tradition of pulling out amazing performances in the night sessions of this tournament. He did against Federer in 2005 (7-5 7-5 7-6) and more recently in 2007, he took Blake to 5 sets in another amazing night session of the US Open. More than being a joy to watch, Santoro is also a very dangerous player, with his amazing movement, consistence and never-ending stamina and the truth is that barring some matches, where he really struggled with the heat (vs Federer in the Australian Open this season, for example), Santoro is capable of pulling out some good fights against the best players in the world on fast surfaces. His 6-3 6-4 7-6 loss against Murray in Wimbledon, 6-3 6-7 6-4 loss to Blake in Miami and 6-3 7-6 loss to Djokovic in Dubai show how Santoro, even though he doesn't have the necessary conditions to beat them, can still fight a lot and cover the spreads.

Santoro defeated Roddick in indoors in the last match between these two players last Autumn (7-6 2-6 6-4) and even when Roddick won, it was never by a large margin (6-4 7-6 and 4-6 6-3 6-3). I expect the same today, with Roddick winning but needing to fight a lot to do it and with Santoro covering the handicap.

Pick : Santoro (+7,5 Games)
Odds : 1.85
Stake : 7 / 10
Bookmaker : Pinnacle
Match Result : 3-0
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