Rusedski Sets Up Roddick Clash

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Greg Rusedksi cruised through to the third round of the Stella Artois Championships with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 victory over Moroccan Hicham Arazi.

Rusedski needed just 66 minutes to set up an intriguing clash against No. 3 seed Andy Roddick, using his trademark serve and volley game to good effect on Centre Court.

"I was pleased with my performance today," said Rusedski. "I'm improving with each match. My movement was better, my serve was better and I was playing the key points better. I started off well today and didn't lose my serve once, so overall it was a good day at the office and I'm looking forward to the next test."

Rusedski defeated Roddick in their only previous meeting at Wimbledon last year, but the Briton knows it will be a difficult match this time around. "Roddick has a different style of tennis [to Arazi]," said Rusedski. "He prefers to stay back and hit the big serve and the big forehand, but I'm looking forward to it. I won the last match pretty convincingly but I'm sure he's improved a lot since then.

"If you can get on top of his serve early then you have got a good chance. He's exciting for the fans to watch because he tries to hit the ball as hard as he can. The key will be who can return better and it will come down to one or two points here and there."

Disappointment

But there was disappointment for Rusedski's fellow countryman Alex Bogdanovic, who came within a whisker of reaching the third round before losing in three sets to Frenchman Anthony Dupuis.

Bogdanovic, who claimed his first victory on the ATP circuit in the first round against fellow countryman Arvind Parmar, had six match points before going down 3-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(9) in 2 hours, 34 minutes.

The Briton led Dupuis 6-5 in the final set and was 0-40 on the Frenchman's serve, but Dupuis saved all three match points and had four of his own at 6-2 in the tie-break, before Bogdanovic hit back and had three more points to seal victory. But Dupuis refused to lie down and clinched the win as the Briton's attempted overhead sailed long.

"It was a really tough match today," said Bogdanovic. "I'm a little bit disappointed I didn't win. I had my chances in the third set but unfortunately I couldn't take them. I will have to learn from this for the next time I'm in a similar situation."

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