Mon, Jun 18, 2007 page19

• Roddick blasts past Tursunov

  DUMP, BUT NOT WET Andy Roddick dominated his rain-delayed match against Dmitry Tursunov, firing off 10 aces and chasing down several shots that looked like certain winners

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  Andy Roddick reached his fourth Queen's final when he beat Russia's Dmitry Tursunov in the battle of the big servers on Saturday.

  Roddick, who won three consecutive titles from 2003 to 2005, saw off Tursunov 6-4, 7-5 and could equal the record for the most singles titles at the Wimbledon warm-up by beating Nicolas Mahut, a 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) winner against Arnaud Clement, in yesterday's final.

  Rain had delayed the start of the match for nearly three hours, but Roddick, who holds the world record fastest serve, showed no signs of being affected when the covers finally came off as he dominated from start to finish.

  

  Andy Roddick returns the ball to Dmitry Tursanov at the Queen's tennis tournament at the Queen's Club in London on Saturday.

  PHOTO: AFP

  By his own admission the American second seed had been well below his best for much of the week, but the two-time Wimbledon runner-up has only ever lost two matches here and is always a potent force on grass.

  After eight closely fought games, his intensity suddenly increased and, aided by two Tursunov errors, he broke for the first time.

  He had won that game to love and he took the next four points as well to hold serve and take the set from Tursunov.

  Roddick boasts arguably the most lethal serve on the tour and Tursunov, who had knocked out third seed Fernando Gonzalez in the previous round, struggled to make any impact.

  A total of 10 aces and a host more virtually unplayable serves gave Tursunov a near impossible job as he tried to rattle the former US Open champion.

  Tursunov has a powerful serve of his own but Roddick chased down every seemingly lost cause as he refused to surrender a single point without a fight. He managed to reach one smash that had ballooned over his head and then scrambled to return what looked a certain winner from Tursunov.

  That bloody-mindedness eventually wore Tursunov down and the California-based seventh seed sent a forehand well wide to hand Roddick the decisive break in the 11th game of the second set.

  Roddick wasted no time in wrapping up the match. Tursunov had never threatened to break and that was the case again as Roddick held serve in the next game to seal the win.

  If Roddick can win the final it will be his first tour title of the season and only his second since Jimmy Connors became his coach in last July.

  Mahut's victory clinched his first ATP Tour final appearance and made him only the second French player to reach the Queen's final, emulating Sebastien Grosjean's appearances in 2003 and 2004.

  Mahut and Clement are firm friends and they had spent the evening before their match dining together. But if they eat out again, it's safe to say Mahut should be paying after denying his pal a place in the final.

  Mahut's progress to the last four had been one of the stories of the tournament. The unseeded 25-year-old had enjoyed a day to remember on Friday when he knocked out fifth seed Ivan Ljubicic and then came back later the same day to beat French Open champion Rafael Nadal.

  With his wraparound shades and bandana, Clement looks more like a surfer than a tennis pro and the 14th seed would have been better off on a beach in the first set as Mahut quickly took control.

  Although he is ranked 106th in the world, Mahut's game is ideally suited to grass. He broke in the fourth game and didn't give Clement a sniff of a chance to come back as he took the set.

  Mahut's powerful serves kept Clement off-balance and his ace count had reached 14 by late in the second set.

  Clement's frustration at failing to break boiled over in Mahut's next service game when he slammed his racket into the turf after another missed return.

  The set went to a tie-break and Clement's anger surfaced again after a Mahut winner as he berated the umpire over the call. He knew his chances were dwindling and Mahut finished him off in style with a perfect volley.
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