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Tiebreaks and aces are expected in this first Newport semifinal, as big servers Samuel Groth and Ivo Karlovic square off for a place in the final of the last grass court tournament of the season.
Listen, Groth is in the form of his life right now, he`s playing his best tennis, no doubt about that. The big Australian struggled to make a name for himself in recent years despite his big serve, but finally found some consistency in his play and made a good impression in this grass court season. His serve is nearly untouchable and he proved excellent abilities at the net as well (the Roland Garros doubles semifinal was no surprisise). Groth plays serve and volley on this surface with great effectiveness and he had no problems dispatching Young, Jaziri and Mahut so far, not losing a single set.
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Karlovic of course is a similar player to Groth, the same big serve, a little bit less rushing to the net but a better tennis player overall. Ivo had a surprisingly good season so far and made his way back to number 31 in the rankings. He lost some rhythm in the grass court season, a somewhat peculiar thing, but returned to form here at Newport to defeat Ginepri, Stakhovsky and Sela in straight sets, the Stakhovsky win being a particularly impressive one against a fine player.
The H2H is 1-0 for Karlovic and the only meeting between the two was played this year at Delray Beach. The Croatian won 7-6 6-3 but Groth is in much better form right now. That match saw a single break of serve and we could expect even less today. The matchup is simple here, two immense servers, maybe both in Top 3 in this department and playing on grass should assure easy service holds for both of them.
I like the over a lot here, even if the line looks high at 25,5. Both guys have been broken just once so far in this tournament and honestly this match could see no breaks of serve, even if it goes to a decider. I picked the same outcome in the Groth – Mahut match and I lost, but Mahut was awful, and there were some “if’s” there (if Mahut is back in form, if he serves well). There are no “if’s” this time, we know what to expect from both players and Karlovic has a much better serve than Mahut. Groth and Karlovic are in solid form and are serving bomb after bomb, they will both produce their usual tennis. We should see two tiebreaks aside from a lucky/unlucky break, and of course even in that situation we can be saved by 3 sets, which is not an unlikely scenario at all. My tip is over 25,5 games to be played, but for better odds and strictly for value you could also try a bet on Groth to win, as this is clearly a 50-50 encounter, maybe 51-49 for Karlovic due to experience and long term form. Prediction: Samuel Groth – Ivo Karlovic 6-7 7-6 6-7.
Pick: over 25,5 games
Odds: 1.80 @ Ladbrokes
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 6.4
Event date: 12 July
