Andy Roddick defeats James Blake at the BNP Paribas Open 2010
Andy Roddick, eighth seed at the BNP Paribas Open, progressed to the third round today after defeating fellow American James Blake 6-3, 7-5. The match, which lasted one hour and thirty minutes, was held at the Indian Wells Tennis
Gardens in Indian Wells, California. The IWTG is the permanent venue of the event commonly referred to as the Indian Wells Masters, which is the first ATP 1000 Masters event of the year.
Andy Roddick started his campaign here in this match, as he received a bye in the first round due to his high seeding. The current world number 8 is a United States native and has been a participant of this tournament ever since
he broke into the top 100. He was a finalist here last year, when he lost to Ivan Ljubicic. The 28 year old is the 3rd most successful active player on the tennis circuit, and a real title threat this year.
His opponent, Blake, is 31 and was, at one point, America's second best player after Roddick. He has recently been dealing with injury problems though, and after a disastrous 2010, is ranked at 158th in the South African Airways
ATP singles rankings. His year so far has not been great; he has played 6 tour level matches and has lost half of them. Also, his presence here comes thanks to a wildcard entry.
Roddick and Blake last crossed swords in 2010, at the Memphis Open. There, Roddick emerged the victor, as he has done 7 times out of the 10 meetings they have had. The forecast for this match was also firmly in the world no.8's
favour, and he bore out the predictions unfailingly.
The match started slowly for both players. Surprisingly, the Roddick serve was not firing at all. He only managed three aces, and failed to land in 48 per cent of his first serves. His opponent was rather worse with 72 per cent
of his first serves ruled out, but the lack of accuracy on serve was a worrying point for the 28-year-old. Making up somewhat for that though was his conversion rate of serves into points. A whopping 93 per cent of the points on the Roddick first serve went
to his own name, and he emerged with one foot firmly ahead by the end of the first set. Blake yielded one break out of five opportunities to hand his opponent the set quite tamely.
The second set saw both players improve their serving, but Roddick really lit a fire under his opponent by firing down 10 aces. He also dominated on the return game, winning 46 per cent of the points on Blake's serve. This allowed
him to break twice, and despite being broken once himself, he closed out the match easily.
Roddick faces John Isner, another compatriot, in the third round. With his guns up and firing, the 28-year-old from Texas will look to take down another deputy of his in Isner. As a contest between two of the best servers in the
game right now, it should be highly intriguing.
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