TENNIS in DEPTH.

Czech Tomas Berdych finally broke his hoodoo against Nikolay Davydenko, taking just 107 minutes to crush the Russian No.12 seed for the first time in nine meetings. He will face Andy Roddick on Monday who cruised past Austrian Jurgen (YER-gin) Melzer, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-3.

Roddick had 33 aces Saturday, the final one on match point. He improved to 9-0 against Melzer, and he’s 22-3 this year in tiebreakers.

 Of course, this was the perfect place for Berdych to reverse those fortunes. As a reliable performer at Wimbledon in recent years – he was a quarter-finalist in 2007 – he would have been confident that he could find the tactics to send the Russian packing in Wimbledon’s first week for the seventh time in eight years.

And so he did, with an impressive all-court game which had the Russian rattled. Of course, Davydenko’s error-strewn and lethargic display also had a lot to do with it.

Berdych, the 20th seed, looked impressive from the outset and secured an early break to lead 3-1 after a baseline exchange ended with a forehand winner down the line. While cruising on his own serve, he was also asserting his dominance on his opponent and picked off returns at ease.

The towering Czech player also showed a volleying competence which could be a force in the second week of The Championships.

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