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Roddick v. Safin: extroverts ready to roarPlus: Harkleroad's divorce; Jankovic on choking; Petrova's a CypriotBy Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net
The two percolating personalities and big-time bashers will contest the first marquee men's match Down Under when they clash for the seventh time. They've played six times, and cut the rivalry in half. For the second occasion, they will play at the Australian Open, after the Russian survived another scare but bested 21-year-old Israeli Dudi Sela 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-0 and Roddick geeked Marc Gicguel 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-4. Safin beat Roddick the last time they played, in the '06 Davis Cup semifinal on clay, and also took down Roddick in a classic five-set quarterfinal here in 2005, when Safin went on to win the title. But Roddick has had his fair share of hard court victories, beating Safin three times in 2004 at Indian Wells, Bangkok and the Masters Cup. "We've always had close matches, probably with the exception of the first time we played, when I think he was No. 1 and I was not close to that," said Roddick. "We're kind of similar. We both like to hit a big ball. We both serve pretty big, move decently for being considered big guys. He's great. Sometimes the racket looks like a tooth pick in his hand the way he can just kind of flick it off. His talent's never been questioned with what he's able to do with the tennis ball." Safin is still working his way back toward the top, which is the reason why the two men are meeting so early. Much of that has to do with injury and some of it with motivation. Nonetheless, Safin has pretty reestablished himself, regardless of his ranking. "If you're looking at a list of guys, you're asking someone who are their top six or seven favorites for this event, I feel like his name is in there still," Roddick said. "Maybe just from the stance maybe he hasn't played as much tennis as some of the Top-10 guys over the last two years. If Marat is match tough, I don't think there's any question of his standard." There's no doubt that Safin is match tough – he's already had to pull out two five-setters. He still goes on walkabouts and isn't getting enough depth of his groundies, but he played well in the clutch against Sela and served well when he had to. He also called upon the rain gods in critical part of the fourth set, a brief shower that he said saved him. But he won't get that lucky against Roddick, who's playing with tremendous confidence. Both men will be charging forward and trying to dictate. Don't expect to see too many rallies from behind the baseline but do expect about a dozen dives around the net. Both men's coaches, Jimmy Connors and Alexander Volkov, want their 6-footers to play far less defense. "It's very important for both of us, who is going to be more aggressive at the beginning of the match and who will take the opportunities and who will choke first," Safin said with a chuckle. "I think he's looking forward. I think he was watching my match and studying me as well as I was studying him, and hopefully it's going to be interesting. There's not much you can do from the baseline, because from the baseline everyone is playing pretty well. There's a lot of guys that they can stay forever, so there is no fun for me also to run around with 1 meter-95 for running around to the baseline at the age of 27. Looks a little bit ridiculous. So to make my life a little bit easier and to use my height and my serve to put a little bit of pressure and look for the life at the net, not at the baseline." Two other men bear watching, but this time on Thursday: Lleyton Hewitt, who showed a lot of guts in taking down Mike Russell in five (it's sad that Russell will be remembered for two five-set Slam losses, the first one to Guga Kuerten at Roland Garros), and Andy Murray, who only gave up a game to Alberto Martin and was angry about it. Hewitt said he had to "dig as hard as I've ever had to dig," but now that he passed through the always dicey first round, he should be okay against Canada's Frank Dancevic. James Blake must beware of Hewitt, who could await him in the second week. Murray will be harder pressed by Fernando Verdasco and cannot afford to play four hours this early on. US fans should pay close attention to Blake vs. upstart Alex Kuznetsov. All the US vets are praising the youngster's game. © TennisReporters.net 2007
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