Roddick and Isner to meet in semi-finals of Winston-Salem Open

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Roddick and Isner to meet in semi-finals of Winston-Salem Open

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Roddick enjoys a 3-1 advantage in career meetings with Isner but he predicted a tough encounter.

26 August,2011 01:36 pm

Andy Roddick and John Isner set up a mouth-watering semi-final between two big servers after the Americans won their respective quarter-final matches at the Winston-Salem Open.Top-seeded Roddick crushed seventh seed Juan Monaco of Argentina 6-1 6-4 while fourth seed Isner recovered from a shaky start to beat eighth-seeded Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 1-6 6-3 6-4.Roddick enjoys a 3-1 advantage in career meetings with the towering Isner but he predicted a tough encounter in the last four with his six-foot nine-inch compatriot.Its just whoever can scrape a return back on a big point and hope that something good happens, Roddick told reporters after keeping his U.S. Open preparations on a smooth winning track.The biggest thing is youve just got to try and take care of your own serve. I dont often go into a match with the second-best serve but that will be the case tomorrow.Roddick, whose buildup to the seasons final grand slam had been interrupted by an abdominal injury, is bidding to reach his third ATP World Tour final of the year.Isner was delighted to turn his match around against Baghdatis, who will be his first-round opponent at the U.S. Open starting at Flushing Meadows Monday.It was the second time Ive played him this summer and Ive had good success, said Isner. For sure I dont give any players rhythm because on my serve Im keeping the points short.A lot of the guys like rhythm and Marcos is one of those guys. When he gets into a groove from the baseline, thats when he plays well and has good results.Ninth-seeded Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky, who upset fifth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia in the previous round, ended his golden run Thursday when he was beaten 3-6 7-6 6-2 by French qualifier Julien Benneteau.