Well, this surely wasn’t the final people were expecting.  Head-to-head would have suggested a Nadal-Soderling final in a rematch of the fourth round where Nadal lost in Paris.  Instead, Roddick upset Nadal and Berdych pummeled Soderling, winning 6-2, 6-2.  Apparently, Berdych wasn’t done winning after defeating Roger Federer.  At least Fed can feel good about losing to someone that reached the finals (not).

Andy Roddick has a 5-2 lead over Tomas Berdych including 3 straight wins.  He even had a win over Berdych on clay (in Davis Cup). They’ve met twice this year, once in Brisbane (which Roddick won) and once in San Jose.  Roddick will at least be familiar with playing Berdych though arguably, Berdych is playing quite well since Indian Wells.  It may be as close as Roddick gets to playing Federer.

It’s likely Roddick will go back to his usual style of counterpunching play, instead of the more attacking style he used against Nadal.  Roddick will hope that Berdych plays inconsistently while he pressures him on serve.  Roddick hasn’t won a Masters in a while, and so this would be a nice breakthrough for him, back to back.

If you were to have looked at Indian Wells and Miami and predicted Roddick would be in the finals of both, most would have laughed.  And yet, Roddick generally doesn’t lose to players he shouldn’t lose to (outside the occasional American).  Of course, Roddick has benefited from Davydenko and del Potro not playing, but he already showed his mettle by beating Nadal.

Berdych will play a completely different style, one that is more aggressive and attacking, but that might be better for Roddick.  Roddick has struggled against mobile big guys, most notably del Potro and Cilic, so this won’t be an easy task, but he can take comfort that he’s beaten the guy twice this year.