Needing to give himself a chance to break serve late in the third set, Roddick dropped about 8 feet behind the baseline to show the Belgian a different look. The strategy paid off.
"I wasn't returning well close in," Roddick said. "I just didn't have my timing or whatever. I think he missed eight of his first nine serves when I stood back and did that." Roddick, the No. 1 seed, beat Malisse 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the Atlanta Tennis Championships on Friday night.
John Isner, the second seed, took less than an hour in the afternoon to beat Michael Russell 6-1, 6-2.
Roddick pumped his fist and shouted in celebration after breaking serve on Malisse's wide backhander.
"He was in a pretty decent groove on first serves in the third set. He was hitting his spots. He has a good serve, but he doesn't normally pop aces, you know? I gave him a different look." Before improving to 9-0 on the ATP tour against Malisse, Roddick struggled in the first set with two double-faults and had problems throughout the match in earning just six of 38 first-return points.
But Roddick, the tour leader this year with a 28-4 record on hard courts, never lost the power of his serve and finished with 17 aces. The capacity crowd at the Atlanta Athletic Club's stadium court was decidedly in his favor.
Malisse, the seventh seed, wasn't upset that many fans cheered after he hit errant shots.
"It's nice to have a crowd, at least," Malisse said. "Even if it's against me, it doesn't really bother me. They were really respectful." Isner, who rose to tennis fame with a record-long match at Wimbledon, showed why he's one of the ATP tour's service leaders with 11 aces and an 89 percentage on first serves.
He will face South Africa's Kevin Anderson, a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Lukas Lacko of Slovakia, in the first semifinal.
Roddick, who played despite a swollen foot, will play Mardy Fish, a 6-3, 6-0 winner over Taylor Dent. Fish, who overcame a sprained ankle, is attempting to earn his second straight title after winning on grass two weeks ago in Newport, Rhode Island Club officials said the surface of the stadium court was 102 degrees during Isner's match, but the crowd favorite moved his feet more swiftly than he showed in a second-round victory Wednesday over left-hander Gilles Muller that lasted more than 2 1/2 hours.
Isner's record five-set match at Wimbledon took three days and over 11 hours to complete. He breezed past Russell in 56 minutes.
Despite the oppressive heat Friday, Isner could see the ball more easily than he did against Muller, allowing him to keep up a steady rhythm on his returns.
The 6-foot-9 Isner was cheered avidly throughout the afternoon by Georgia fans who remember his leading role in the Bulldogs' 2007 national team title.
Georgia's career leader in singles and doubles wins beat Anderson that year in a final-day match that helped the Bulldogs defeat Illinois before a raucous capacity crowd in Athens.
Isner is the second-highest ranking American, 19th in the world, behind No. 9 Roddick, who won his first ATP title nine years ago against Malisse at the suburban Atlanta club.
In Bad Gastein, Austia, Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland rallied to beat Austria's Yvonne Meusburger 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the Gastein Ladies final.
In her first final of the season, the second-seeded Bacsinszky will face either Alize Cornet or Julia Goerges. Their semifinal was canceled due to rain and rescheduled for Sunday morning. The final will be played later Sunday.
The 52nd-ranked Swiss player could win her second career title after Luxembourg in 2009.
Bacsinszky lost all four service games in the opening set when she struggled to find the right length on her ground strokes.
Bacsinszky, who was beaten by Meusburger at the Australian Open in January, took control afterward. She won the second set after saving two break points at 5-4.
In the last set, Bacsinszky was up 4-3 and facing double break point when she suddenly left the court, claiming that rain had made the clay surface too slippery.
However, the umpire persuaded her to play on. Bacsinszky came back after a couple of minutes, won that game and broke Meusburger in the next with a return winner on her first match point.
The Gastein Ladies is the last clay-court tournament of the WTA Tour season.
In Hamburg, Germany, Jurgen Melzer of Austria will play Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan for the German Open title.
The third-seeded Melzer beat Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-4, 6-2, while the No. 82-ranked Golubev defeated Florian Mayer of Germany 7-6 (6), 6-4 on Saturday to reach his first career final.
No. 15-ranked Melzer was a semifinalist at the French Open and won the Wimbledon doubles title this year. He was also a semifinalist in Hamburg in 2004. Seppi had beaten Melzer in their previous two clay-court matchups.
