Tennis-Wimbledon-Roddick enjoys studying the vital stats

LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Andy Roddick is a man who loves to check out vital statistics -- and that has nothing to do with his swimwear model wife.

The American was poring over a sheet of stats relating to his 7-6 7-6 4-6 6-3 victory over Austrian Juergen Melzer in the Wimbledon third round on Saturday when he walked into his news conference and was asked to explain what he looked for.

"First serve percentage is big for me. Points won receiving second serves is big for me. And the other one is just feeding my curiosity," the sixth seed said.

"(The stat sheet) rarely lies. I mean, I can normally guess. As far as first serve percentage, I can normally guess (within) two or three percent. You kind of get a feel for it."

The key numbers against the Austrian 26th seed would have made pleasant reading -- Roddick got got 72 percent of his first serves in and fired 33 aces at the left-hander.

He was frustrated not to have found a way to break Melzer in the first two sets, when games went with serve, but was pleased with the way he handled the tiebreaks.

"I think my career record in breakers is pretty good. I feel comfortable obviously, being able to win cheap points under tense situations with my serve helps," said the 26-year-old, who married model Brooklyn Decker earlier this year.

It was Melzer who broke first, going up 3-2 in the third. He then won three set points with a beautiful lob, sealing the set with a crosscourt forehand that Roddick did not even move for.

DARK CLOUDS

The American's previous two matches had also gone to a fourth set and, with dark rain clouds gathering above, Roddick was keen to get things over with quickly before the new Centre Court roof could be deployed for the first time in a match.

He had to break twice in the fourth but eventually secured victory with an ace.

"Like the other two matches, I wish I could have converted on a chance in the third set. But probably I hit the ball my best in the fourth again," the 2003 U.S. Open champion said.

Roddick, Wimbledon runner-up in 2004 and 2005, said he was much better prepared than last year when he suffered a second-round exit but that he was still not playing quite as well as the first time he reached the final.

"I think the best I've played here was probably '04. In '05 I was pretty fortunate to get to the final. I could go through why, but just take my word for it," he said.

"But as far as comparing (this year) to '05, it's probably similar. I feel like I can play better."

Looking ahead to his fourth-round match against 20th seed Tomas Berdych, Roddick said the Czech was unpredictable.

"Berdych is streaky. It's rarely middle of the road. He's either really good or not so good," he said.

"Right now you expect to get the best of him with the way he's been rolling through the tournament so far." (Editing by Ken Ferris; To comment on this story: sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)