Tennis: Roddick Ends Fish Dreams

Mardy Fish's unlikely charge through the Australian Open field was ended in emphatic fashion today as he fell 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 to fellow American and former flatmate Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals.

World No42 Fish upset fourth seed Ivan Ljubicic in the first round but failed to deal with the power of Roddick - the sixth seed - who secured his third appearance in the last four at the Melbourne grand slam in one hour and 27 minutes at the Rod Laver Arena.

Roddick took the first set with two breaks and despite dropping serve at the beginning of the second doubled his lead with three breaks of his own.

Two further service breaks in the third set saw Roddick home to set-up a semi-final meeting with number one seed Roger Federer or Spain's Tommy Robredo in the last four.

Roddick powered past his compatriot with a 92% first-serve success rate, while Fish struggled throughout and conceded 26 unforced errors compared to just two from the world number seven.

"I played pretty flawless," Roddick said. "It's probably the best I've played against him. Mardy might have been a little bit nervous at the beginning as he made a few errors he wouldn't normally make, but that's about as well as I can play.

"I felt great going into the game physically and I feel like I'm hitting the ball well. The gap on Roger has probably been closing a little bit and I'm playing about as well as I can. So if I play Roger then I will look forward to it."

Fish added: "He puts so much pressure on you and I didn't feel like anything was working. Andy can go all the way and win the tournament."

Today's men's singles results:

(6) Andy Roddick (USA) bt Mardy Fish (USA) 6-2, 6-2, 6-2