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What’s the best way to end a tennis career? Most people would say nothing can beat the strategy executed to perfection by one of the greatest players of all time: play possum for a few months, let the calls for your retirement reach a fever pitch, and then string together one last magical run to silence the critics and go out in a blaze of glory. Yes, Pete Sampras really did produce the fairytale ending to beat all fairytale endings when he won the US Open in 2002. But Andy Roddick, the player who was once considered the successor to Sampras, may have just produced an even more poignant end to his career, even if the script may not necessarily have been of his design. Roddick was defeated 6-7, 7-6, 6-2, 6-4 by Juan Martin Del Potro in the US Open fourth round yesterday to end his career, and the match could be said to be a microcosm of a lot of things: of Roddick the player, of the evolution of the game during his career, even of the necessity for him to call curtains on his playing days. And oh, did I mention that the end came in front of his adoring home fans, at the venue which was the seat of his greatest triumph? You’d be hard-pressed to find a finale as symmetrical, emblematic and impactful as the one that was bestowed on Roddick yesterday.
The match showcased all of Roddick’s most celebrated strengths, as well as his most derided faults. The serve was on show alright – the speed, accuracy and sheer bombast of the Roddick delivery left Del Potro non-plussed at the start of the match. The flat forehand made a brief reappearance too – the ball whizzed through the court as Roddick sent several crushing forehands flying away for winners. Unfortunately for Roddick, though, his inadequacy at the net was exposed a little too frequently throughout the match, as was the inconsistency of his backhand. In the first two sets, Roddick tried being the aggressor, frequently approaching the net and taking time away from his opponent. As the match wore on, though, Roddick’s relative lack of firepower off the ground began to leave him vulnerable to the unrelenting missiles of Del Potro, and the American retreated a little to ‘rally mode’, a tactic that he developed over the years to counter the elastic baseline defense of the modern game. And here, too, Roddick fell short; with the players today so much more quick and flexible than they were when he started his career (even the 6’6 Del Potro is no slouch), Roddick’s groundstrokes started to break down, to an extent that it soon became starkly obvious why his decision to call it a day had come at the right time. In the midst of all of this, Roddick’s greatest strength – his willingness to try everything in his power to compete on level terms – shone through as well. Honestly, there was nothing more that we, as spectators, could have asked for from the match destined to go down as the last of Roddick’s career.
As has been widely documented, Roddick’s solitary Grand Slam triumph came nine years ago, right here in New York. Did Roddick deserve to win more? Answering that question is not as easy as it sounds. On one hand, it is undeniable that Roddick’s game had several limitations when compared with the super-consistent games of the Nadals, Federers and Djokovics of the world. Roddick simply didn’t have the movement or the court sense to stay with the Big 4 in long, punishing rallies on a consistent basis. Some have even suggested that he was lucky to win the 2003 US Open, with the next generation of players not having fully matured yet. On the other hand, you don’t walk away from a 14-16 loss in the fifth set of a Major without feeling distinctly hard done-by, specially when you possess a weapon that is designed to win precisely that kind of epic battle. Roddick’s performance in the 2009 Wimbledon final won him a legion of fans, but it didn’t win him the trophy that he coveted more than any other.
Despite all of Roddick’s struggles, though, an objective follower of the game always got his money’s worth when watching the American compete. You could fault Roddick for a lot of things, but you could never fault him for not trying. He trained hard, repeatedly tried adapting his game to suit the changing times, and chased every ball on the court that he possibly could. There’s a unique joy in watching a player give his absolute best every time he steps on the court, and Roddick never failed to score in that category. Roddick also never failed to score in his press conferences, where his dry humor and quick wit made him the most quotable star in the business. Who wants diplomatic answers when you can have straightforward, rib-tickling one-liners dripping with sarcasm instead? Roddick turned press conference appearance into an art, and I for one will miss that about him more than anything else.
There has always been a sense with Roddick that he suffered much more than he gained because of the great American legacy of producing world-beating players that he inherited. And to an extent, that is true: you don’t hear Juan Carlos Ferrero or even Lleyton Hewitt being constantly questioned about their inability to add Slam titles to their trophy collection. But would Roddick have become such a huge international celebrity if he had been born anywhere other than the USA? There’s a price to pay for fame, as the cliche goes, and Roddick’s career validated that dictum perhaps more sharply than any of us would have liked.
It was tumultuous, it was intense, it was even occasionally painful, but for the most part, it was a fun ride. Roddick’s career may not be as trophy-studded as the careers of some of his peers with whom he was unfairly compared with, but at the end of it all, it seems like it was exactly what it should have been. The man had his share of success, and he achieved everything that an elite tennis pro could ever hope to achieve – a Slam trophy, the No.1 ranking, a Davis Cup victory, and a nice, large collection of titles (32, to be precise). Most importantly, however, he helped produce an indelible memory in the mind of every person who ever watched him play: there’s no sight as awe-inspiring as a rocket serve thudding across the court and spearing away from a resigned opponent who knows there’s no chance in hell to even get close to the ball. When you watched the Roddick serve, you got the feeling that you were watching tennis at its absolute peak; this was something you’d readily pay to watch. And that, in a nutshell is what Andy Roddick did so well throughout his career – he gave people their money’s worth.
