English press
Andy
Wimbledon hero Andy Roddick relaxed in a new comfort zone
American returns to London lifted by his role in epic Wimbledon final against Roger Federer
By Mark Hodgkinson
Published: 10:00PM GMT 14 Nov 2009
On occasions, such as when his swimsuit-model wife uses her Twitter to disclose that he is a Rick Astley fan, or when his postman tells him that he lost this season's Wimbledon final because he was not changing his sweaty shirts often enough, it helps that Andy Roddick doesn't mind people poking fun at him.
"My mailman had it all figured out why I lost the Wimbledon final. He told me that I was sweating a lot more than Roger Federer was. I said, 'that's pretty normal, I sweat more than Roger', and he told me that my sweaty shirts were weighing me down on court, that I should have been changing my shirts more often during the match.
I stood there looking at him, and choked back some laughter just long enough to shut the door, and then I erupted," said the American, who lost a 16-14 fifth set to Federer on Centre Court this summer.
Has anyone ever played a better Wimbledon final and not finished the day holding up that Challenge Cup? Though Roddick is yet to add to his only grand slam title, the 2003 US Open, only the cruel could still describe him as a one-slam wonder.
Roddick's mailman is not the only one who has a strong view on the Wimbledon final, when the former world No 1 lost his serve just once, in the 77th game of a 77-game match.
Though Roddick's autumn has been complicated by a knee problem, and he missed this week's Paris Masters because of the injury, he is still hoping to return to London for the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which starts in a week's time at the O2 Arena.
Outside SW19, it will be the biggest tennis tournament ever held in Britain, and Roddick, assuming he makes the trip, will plainly see how much the British tennis public appreciated his grass-court efforts four months ago.
Of the five grand slam finals Roddick has played in – two at the US Open, and three at Wimbledon – this year's title-match at the All England Club is the one that everyone wants to talk to him about. "I've had so many comments about that match. A lot of people seem to have been affected by it.
I've played in five slam finals now, and that was definitely the most dramatic and the one that people have wanted to talk about the most," he said.
"I still think about the match with Roger, of course, it's normal for me to do that, as that was probably the biggest match of my career, but when I think about it, it's not all negative, it's not all bad. I don't get too down.
"The support I got from the fans was great, and maybe a bit surprising as well. I had a great tournament, getting through to the final, and coming close to winning. I think I can be proud of what I achieved at Wimbledon."
The popular view in Britain of American athletes is that they are a self-satisfied, self-important lot, an impression partly created by the high-school movies showing the 'jocks' pushing people up against the lockers.
There is still something of the all-American 'jock' about Roddick, but he seems to be a calmer soul on and off the court these days, a change that you can attribute to his marriage in April to Brooklyn Decker, who has modelled for Sports Illustrated swimsuit magazine.
"I'm not very good at analysing tennis and marriage and how that works together, but I do know that if you're happy you're probably going to be playing better tennis. She understands that I have to work really hard on my tennis, as there's a certain shelf life for my playing career.
"She likes to write a few comments about me on Twitter. It's a way of her poking fun at me, but that's OK." With Decker, Roddick does "not have to put on a super-brave front".
What do a swimsuit model, a London black-cab driver, Elton John, and one of Tim Henman's former coaches have in common? That eclectic bunch are all in Roddick's support group.
Roddick befriended the taxi driver on a visit to London a few years ago, and they have stayed in touch. Elton John sang at Roddick's wedding.
Perhaps the most important instruction that Larry Stefanki, one of Henman's former coaches, has given Roddick during their time together has been for the player to slim down, to lose some weight.
This remodelled 'Roddick Lite' is much more mobile around the court, which has helped him, even if his game is still based around the ungodly power of his service arm – he holds the record for the fastest serve, at 155mph.
"I feel as though I've made some progress this season. Losing early at the US Open was disappointing, but I've had a pretty good year. I think my fitness has really improved under Larry, and I feel as though I have a lot more options on the court out there." Roddick predicted more "intensity" for Andy Murray in the London docklands.
"I think Andy handles all the attention pretty well. It can be so intense for him playing in Britain, with everyone following his every move. It won't be quite the same at the O2 Arena as it will be at Wimbledon but I'm sure there will be lot of scrutiny.
Andy is bound to be under the microscope again. It's OK, he'll deal with it."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/atptour/6561204/Wimbledon-hero-Andy-Roddick-relaxed-in-a-new-comfort-zone.html
Greatest competitor: Andy Roddick
Six years after he was world No 1, his epic Wimbledon final against Roger Federer proved the most
Tim Adams
The Observer, Sunday 15 November 2009
In the press conference after his Wimbledon final with Roger Federer in July, Andy Roddick was asked to describe the extraordinary events of the previous four hours, particularly the surreal fifth set in which he was forced to serve to stay in the championship nine times, before eventually losing the last of his cat's lives, and the set, 16-14. "Can you tell us what just happened out there, Andy?" Roddick's interlocutor wondered, as if, like the rest of us, he still wasn't quite sure himself.
Roddick considered the question for only a moment, before answering, simply, bleakly, "I lost."
Not since the "I do" of his marriage a couple of months earlier had Roddick asked two words to carry such a weight of emotional understatement. The greatest competitors (Connors, Becker, Borg) – among whom Roddick now must be counted – always talked of being spurred less by the joy of victory than by fear of defeat. Watching Roddick on court after that final, there was in his eyes not a flicker of satisfaction at having just played the greatest tennis of his life; he had only, in his own mind, come up short once again.
Time does not easily heal that hurt. When I ask the same question – what happened out there, Andy? – nearly five months later, his answer remains the same. "I lost. That's the fact of it for me," he says, on the phone from his home in Austin, Texas. "I mean, I can look back on the process of the tournament as a whole with some satisfaction, the semi, beating Andy Murray, but the final itself is tough for me to think about."
The most frustrating aspect of it all, I guess, must have been the role reversal that he and Federer underwent: for long periods of that match he outplayed, shot for shot, the greatest player ever to pick up a racket.
"It was odd," he agrees, "in that I felt like Roger was relying more on his serve, while I was doing better from the back of the court maybe, which is a little different to how it has gone in the past." He pauses. "But I still lost."
In July, a couple of weeks before his twins were born, I talked to Federer about how that match had felt from his side of the net, in particular the weirdness of that fifth set, in which neither player had seemed remotely likely to crack. "I had a feeling at changeovers that we would be there all summer long," Federer suggested, "that they would close the roof, people would sleep all night and wake up and me and Andy would still be there, beards growing, holding serve. Honestly, that went through my mind. I knew he was not going to make a mistake, and I didn't feel that I was…"
The enemy of tennis players is doubt. Did Roddick share that conviction?
"Well," he says, with a laugh, "it was certainly a different kind of match..." The moment that he goes over in his head, the might-have-been that he will live with for the rest of his life, occurred at break point, 12-12. Roddick played a return that he felt got caught a little in the wind as he hit it. "It turned a normal kind of shot for Roger into something much, much trickier." In that instant Roddick thought he might finally have Federer's number, but in a splinter of a second the champion somehow adjusted and got the ball back. The rest was history.
After the match Roddick's agent suggested to him that "he had lost a game but won the heart of his nation". Though he did not do as well as he had hoped at the US Open – he lost in the third round to the unseeded 6ft 9in John Isner, who played the match of his life – he concedes that the defeat at Wimbledon was a breakthrough for him with the American public. Roddick has always been in the unenviable position of following the golden age of Sampras and Agassi and Courier and Chang. For the past five years, he has had to shoulder America's expectations alone, pretty much in the manner of Henman or Murray. In the past that has sometimes looked like a burden, but this year he seemed to relish the role.
"Well," he suggests, "I grew up watching Agassi and Sampras and the rest, and I admired all of them. But for every downside of that pressure the upside has been that I have been the No 1 player in my country, which is pretty cool."
He has taken of late to Twittering about life on the tour. "It's a nice way of reaching out to fans and sharing what you want with them," he says. His messages give little insights into his training schedule, his obsession with his college football team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and his love for his English bulldog, named Billie Jean (after the tennis player). He prefers this direct interaction with the public in part because it bypasses the tennis press, which has not always been kind to him since he won the US Open (still his only grand slam title) and briefly became world No 1 in 2003.
It must have rankled a little with Roddick over the years that he has been thought of as a 155mph serve and not much else. "Yeah," he says, "I'm the most successful bad player ever. I used to hear a lot that all I could do was hit a serve, I couldn't volley, I can't hit a backhand, I don't return well, and then people would turn round and tell me I'm underachieving." He laughs. "Well, all I'd say is – you can't have it both ways. For a guy who can't hit a shot, I've done OK…"
This year, he has achieved that rare mid-career thing, a real step-up in his game. He puts it down partly to his new coach Larry Stefanki, but also to a refreshed desire that has seen him work harder than ever and lose nearly 10lbs from his previous fighting weight. "I work a lot more than I did when I got into the tour, I'm finding that I enjoy getting out on court early in the morning to practise as much as I enjoy matches," he says. "That's a new thing for me." This impetus comes down to wanting to find exactly how good he can be. Roddick wasn't always the most focused and committed player on the tour – a fact that has allowed him to stay balanced off-court. Still, at 27, he reckons he has "three, maybe four" good years left, and he doesn't want to end with regrets.
Another grand slam is, obviously, an ambition. It looks though, I suggest, much tougher than it has for a long time at the top of the men's game. Is that how it feels to him?
"Definitely," Roddick says. "I'm a far better player now than I was when I was No 1 in the world. You look at the guys who have come through, and they are a different kind of athlete. Murray is 6ft 3in, Del Potro is 6ft 6in, Nadal – an awful lot of power, so that's the way it is going."
Roddick got married in April to Brooklyn Decker, a model who first caught his eye in Sports Illustrated's annual swimwear issue – the ultimate mail-order bride (he had his agent fix up a date). Elton John, who has become a friend since he asked to meet Roddick for Interview magazine, played for them at the wedding ("which was kind of unbelievable"). Roddick is not sure that married life has brought an extra maturity to his game, though he certainly suggests that he is as happy as he has ever been, off court and on. He is certain, too, that there are no kids on the immediate horizon. He must have been cheered slightly, I say, by the news that his nemesis, Federer, had become the father of twins – does he imagine his rival's sleepless nights might give him the chance he has been waiting for?
Roddick laughs. "The thing with Roger is that he has created a monster for himself. If he only wins three out of four slams in a year, everyone says he's lost it, he is on the way out. I'm sure he will be around for a while yet."
I wonder if Roddick, who has now lost three Wimbledon finals to Federer, ever allows himself to think how his career might have gone if he had not been born at the same time as the Swiss.
He suggests that way madness lies. "It's a privilege to be out there in a final with him," he says. "One of these days I just have to find a way to win." There is, in this respect, I guess, always next year; Roddick is readier than he has ever been.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/nov/15/andy-roddick-interview