Does anyone know why Andy Roddick is so angry?
Actually, that's an easy one. He's embarrassed. He's not living the life he and everyone else expected him to be living.
Not that he has much to complain about. He's endlessly wealthy. He's married to a swimsuit model. And he gets to spend his days hitting a tennis ball around.
But he complains nonetheless. Because there was supposed to be so much more. You've heard this all before. Everyone oohed and ahhed over Roddick when he came on tour. That mammoth serve. That whip-snap forehand. That gritty will to prevail. Pete Sampras called him "the future of American tennis." And, just past his 21st birthday, he proved the future had arrived by winning the U.S. Open, ending the year at No. 1 and guest-hosting "Saturday Night Live." Many Wimbledon titles and Letterman appearances were supposed to follow.
Alas, it's more than seven years later and there have been no more Grand Slam triumphs. Letterman's booker has probably lost Andy's number.
And so the frustration comes out.
Roddick angrily freaked out at the chair umpire last night in Indian Wells. Roddick had good reason to be annoyed; the malfunctioning electronic net-cord monitor had beeped even though Roddick's serve had sailed well over the net. But even after the situation had been patiently explained to him -- if the machine sounds, the umpire is required to call a net cord, even if it's obviously in error -- Roddick couldn't let it go. His potty-mouth outburst came an entire point after the net-cord incident, following a racket-abuse warning. (Again, the umpire had no choice, seeing as Roddick had smashed his stick into a pretzel.)
When the umpire announced the warning, you could see the wheels turning in Roddick's head: This is a good time for a snarky quip. I'm a funny guy; everyone tells me I'm a funny guy, so I'll zap this jerk with my wit ...
"I'll give you a warning for f---ing ineptitude!" is what he came up with. Because it's difficult to pull out a winning zinger on the fly. And because Roddick actually isn't a funny guy. Americans -- and particularly American sportswriters -- have a tendency to confuse boorishness with a sense of humor, and thus the myth of Roddick's wit.
The real reason for Roddick's pique, of course, had nothing to do with the umpire. It had to do with the man across the net. Richard Gasquet was in the zone, showing the amazing natural talent that led observers to call him "Baby Federer" when he first came on tour. Gasquet won the fourth-round match in straight sets.
There was one shot in particular that showed how locked in Gasquet was. Down a break in the second set, Roddick recognized that he needed to try something different, something to shake up Gasquet's rhythm and confidence. He decided to throw in a serve-and-volley.
He punched a bounding serve into the outside corner of the ad court that leaped up high. Gasquet skittered sideways and backward, and whipped his backhand stroke at shoulder height. The ball careened toward the approaching server -- a watermelon-sized volley right at eye level -- but the hard spin and extreme angle were pulling it away from Roddick. It looked like it was going to land in the first row of the stands. Roddick let it go ... and it fell like a boulder, clipping the sideline. Roddick's head dropped and he considered, for a moment, smashing another racket to pieces.
Which leads us to another subject: Does any other professional sport have a more passive, laissez-faire attitude toward game-changing equipment advances?
Just a few years ago, that return of serve by Gasquet simply would not have been possible. Just as almost every forehand Rafael Nadal hits would not have been possible. New string technology has changed everything. Copoly strings grab the ball, allowing players to hit full out on every point and feel confident that the ball isn't going to sail into orbit. This unquestionably has impacted Roddick's career. Starting a few years ago, players suddenly were able to take full swings at his returns, something that never happened when he first arrived on the scene.
Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon champion, is disgusted by this development. "For me, it's gone too far," he said in an interview the other day. "I think the ITF should step up and regulate string technology. There's too much spin on the ball and there's too much power. It's killing the volley and making the game more boring because you don't get the contrasting styles as much. ... Shots are dipping in now with these strings that, 20 years ago, would not go in, so you have to play more safely. Years back, you couldn't afford to hit the ball so hard because you couldn't keep the ball in the court. ... The only shot that the strings don't really help is the volley. You don't have the same control. You don't need power on the volley, you need the control."
So technology has wrecked a fundamental part of the game. Major League Baseball or even golf would never allow such a thing to happen, but professional tennis authorities are different. They seem open to the possibility of players with bionic arms in the future.
Yet it wasn't always so. If you're old enough to remember Ilie Nastase and the Great Spaghetti-string Brouhaha (I'm not quite old enough, but I read a lot), then you know it wasn't always so. When Guillermo Vilas walked out on his match with Nastase, tennis authorities woke up and quickly banned the strings. Vilas was a handsome and charming poster boy for the sport, in the midst of his best season ever on tour. Nastase was ... well, Nastase. The International Tennis Federation clearly had to do something.
The spaghetti strings were different in that they created a knuckleball effect, which called into question the whole integrity of the game. But is there any doubt that the copoly strings being used today have caused an even bigger alteration in the sport? blog.oregonlive.com/tennis/2011/03/andy_roddicks_mad_and_hes_not_going_to_take_it_anymore.html
