Tennis – ATP World Tour

It’s something of a split week on the ATP World Tour coming up.

On the one hand you have the claycourters battling for 500 ranking points at the German Open in Hamburg.

On the other, the hardcourt experts are beginning their preparations for next month’s US Open at the Atlanta Championships.

In Atlanta, it appears Andy Roddick is determined to play himself into form following a disappointing grasscourt campaign.

Few saw defeats at Queen’s and Wimbledon to Dudi Sela and Yen-Hsun Lu respectively coming and it appears the player himself is a little concerned.

He’s altered his schedule and asked for a wild card here.

Given his recent form, Roddick will do well to think back a few months when he was arguably the hottest player on the tour during the spring sweep of the United States.

He made the final in Indian Wells before beating Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych to win in Miami.

The title added to his triumph in Brisbane and extended his hardcourt win-loss record for the season to an impressive 26-4.

With little to challenge him in the top half of the draw – likely semi-final foe Mardy Fish has lost the pair’s last nine meetings – it would be no surprise to see Roddick pick up where he left off.

Yet his price is very skinny at around 6/5 and at the prices John Isner looks a value alternative on the other side of the draw.

The event – being played for the first time since 2001 – has DecoColor as its surface, essentially the same court used for the US Open.

That will suit Isner’s big-serving game and three and a half weeks on from his 11-hour epic with Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon he should be fully refreshed.

Already a winner on hardcourts in Auckland and a finalist in Memphis this season, it should be pointed out that Isner’s run to the top 20 can be traced back to this point last season.

This very week, Isner made the semis in Indianapolis before going on to the last eight in Los Angeles the week after. Another semi-final showing in Washinton followed that.

Basically, like Roddick, Isner loves this time of year, the ball coming through quickly and bouncing high and true.

Lleyton Hewitt appears to offer the biggest threat – he’s been in fine form too – but it’s Isner we like most in the bottom half where his serve will be such a weapon.

If, as we expect, he faces Roddick in the final, that match will likely rest on a handful of points.

That’s been the case in the past when their matches have always featured a tie-break.

The last saw Isner win a final-set breaker to beat Roddick at the US Open last season, while prior to that Roddick triumphed 7-5 in the third in Washington.

You can get 9/2 about an Isner triumph here and that looks acceptable to us.

This week’s more lucrative event is in Hamburg.

It’s a former Masters Series tournament but is now ranked among the 500 events after losing that status last season.

Those points are still enough to attract many of the game’s top dirtballers. Nikolay Davydenko is the top seed, while David Ferrer heads a host of Spaniards.

Both Davydenko and Ferrer have decent records here – the Russian is the defending champion – but both are pretty short at 5/1 in a field of this quality and depth.

Swedish Open winner Nicolas Almagro is the 9/2 favourite but it’s to the other side of the draw that we are going to turn.

Tommy Robredo has claims after returning to form in Stuttgart last week where he reached the semi-finals.

He’ll be highly hopeful of continuing his good run here, the scene of arguably the greatest triumph of his career in 2006.

Some will be concerned about a last-16 meeting with the in-form Albert Montanes, yet Robredo has won all eight of their previous meetings on the main tour – not to mention four more at Challenger level.

With that in mind, he’ll have his backers at around 14/1 to emerge from the third quarter.

However, it’s Jurgen Melzer we are going to trust with our cash.

Sadly he’s in the same section as Robredo (otherwise we’d have likely backed both) but it’s the left-hander who deserves support at a better price of 16/1.

Melzer was in superb form at the French Open where he was a surprise semi-finalist and he backed that up with a run to the last 16 at Wimbledon.

Last week it was the quarter-finals in Stuttgart where he lost to Montanes, but as we’ve already said we don’t feel the two will meet again here.

It can easily be argued Melzer’s result in Stuttgart could have been better had it not been his first week back on the clay following the grasscourt season.

That’s not an issue this week and with the Austrian bedded in on the surface once more, we’re confident of a good showing from him here.

Clearly his form is good and his quarter-final exit last week could also be a blessing in disguise with many of his main rivals here having been in action over finals weekend in either Stuttgart or Bastad.