Roddick fires coach; names his brother as replacement
By Charles Bricker
Sun-Sentinel
Posted February 8 2006
Four matches into the season, Andy Roddick has dismissed Dean Goldfine, his coach of 13 months, and will begin working with his older brother, John Roddick, right after this weekend's Davis Cup matches against Romania.
"It wasn't a question of Andy not playing well and I don't want to say that his association with Dean was temporary to begin with, but Andy is just 35 percent into his career and John has incredible credentials," agent Ken Meyerson said Wednesday in confirming the story.
For Roddick, 23, it's the third coaching change of his professional career. He began with Tarik Benhabiles, the former French Davis Cup doubles player, then spent a year and a half with Brad Gilbert, who formerly coached Andre Agassi. It was with Gilbert that he won the 2003 U.S. Open, his only Grand Slam title, and reached No. 1. He is currently ranked No. 3.
Looking for someone less high profile, Roddick hired Goldfine in December of 2004. Goldfine, who lives in Aventura, had coached Todd Martin, the perennial top-10 player, for seven years.
In his year with Goldfine, Roddick had a 59-14 won/lost record and was runnerup at Wimbledon to Roger Federer and a semifinalist at the Australian Open.
Among his disappointments was a first-round loss to virtual unknown Gilles Muller of Luxembourg at the U.S. Open and a second-round loss at the French Open to Jose Acasuso after being up two sets and a break in the third.
Roddick is 3-1 this year, losing in four sets to eventual runnerup Marcos Baghdatis in the fourth round of the Aussie Open last month.
Roddick, in San Diego to play against Romania, couldn't be immediately reached for comment and his brother was flying most of the day Wednesday.
The brothers are extremely close and John has had something of a consulting role over the years while running is tennis academy (Roddick-Moros International Tennis Academy) in San Antonio.
"We'll see how it goes," said Meyerson. It was unclear if John Roddick will be a permanent coach or will be there part or all of this season to shepherd his brother through the major tournaments. But John Roddick will travel with his brother.
"There's no magic formulas here," said Meyerson. "There's no blame game here. Andy is just 23 and very open to things.
It was not the ideal time for the news to break about Roddick's coaching situation because he wants the focus to be on the U.S. team's play against Romania this weekend.
Goldfine couldn't be reached for comment, but Meyerson said, "Truthfully, he's been struggling a little bit with the traveling. He has two kids under 5 and it's a heavy grind spending most of his time in Austin (where Roddick resides).
Charles Bricker can be reached at cbricker@sun-sentinel.com