Roddick Moves Right Along

(August 30, 2010) He has supplanted the spiky hairstyle that once burst from beneath the backward baseball cap like an unruly chia pet escaping from its base with a more conservative style and while he can still rock the radar gun at will, Andy Roddick is more of a measured purpose pitcher on serve now. The 2003 US Open champion may be getting older but he still knows how to throw a birthday bash on court.

Roddick celebrated his 28th birthday and 11th consecutive US Open in style today, rolling to a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 thrashing of 30-year-old Stephane Robert on Arthur Ashe Stadium court.

It’s been seven years since Roddick dispatched David Nalbandian and Juan Carlos Ferrero in succession to capture his lone major title in Flushing Meadows. He joins Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt as the lone former champions in the field.

Roddick says he doesn’t dwell on age but each passing birthday is a reminder he’s closer to the finish line.

“I don’t really think about it, because it makes no difference what I think about it.  It’s like you go out there and give the best of what you got on that day,” Roddick said. “You wake up in the morning and you put what you can into that single day.  Obviously I know I’m probably closer to finished than I am to the start.  But I don’t know.  It’s a number.  I’m barely older than I was yesterday.”

The two-time US Open finalist played some of the best tennis of his career in reaching successive Masters 1000 finals in Indian Wells and Miami last spring. He asserted an aggressive game plan in defeating Rafael Nadal in the semis before downsizing the big-hitting Tomas Berdych in the Sony Ericsson Open final.

Though Roddick has won two titles this year and leads the ATP Tour in hard-court wins with a 34-7 record, he hasn’t elbowed his way into contender conversations that revolve primarily around five-time champion Roger Federer, Nadal and 2008 finalist Andy Murray and Roddick seems to enjoy flying under the radar a bit.

Roddick says he feels he’s recovered from the mild case of mononucleosis that prompted him to withdraw from the Rogers Cup in Toronto and is coming off a semifinal effort in Cincinnati where he served for a spot in the final before losing his serve and his grip on the match in succumbing to good friend Mardy Fish.

“It’s going the right way.  To be honest, once you decide to play, I think you throw all the excuses and everything else out the window,” Roddick said. “If I decide to play, then it’s up to me to give 100 percent of what I have.  So it’s not something I really want to discuss too much from this point forward.  It’s something that’s there.  You know, I’m not going to analyze it every day. It’s not perfect, but it’s fine.  You know, it’s going the right way.”

Roddick and wife Brooklyn Decker own an apartment in the Grammercy Park area and the man who consistently delivers candor in his post-match press conferences has an affinity for  the direct approach of New Yorkers.

Asked if he feels like a New Yorker, Roddick replied: “I certainly pay enough taxes for it.”

“I mean, it is nice having a place here and having a kind of quasi home,” Roddick added. “I always feel comfortable here in New York even when I didn’t have a place.  I stayed at the same hotel and everything for years and years and years and years, so I don’t mind New York. People tell you what they think, and I’ve always kind of appreciated that.”

Rich Pagliaro is the editor of TennisNow.com.