Andy Roddick, for a man convinced that his time is coming and that he is ready to win his first grand slam event, has put in some bizarre preparation for the next week’s United States Open. He has played to the point where he no longer wants to pick up a racket, and he is now going to jump out of a plane with his coach.
The skydive is the result of winning a bet with Brad Gilbert before capturing the Masters Series title in Montreal two weeks ago. The player has jumped several times before and likes it, and the coach has not. ‘He’ll mess his pants,†said Roddick.
The exhaustion is the result of Gilbert arguably being more effective than either could have imagined. He has persuaded Roddick to cultivate a tougher image (‘get rid of the Fred Couples visorâ€) and to think as much about what his opponents do not like as what he himself did.
The 20-year-old is now top of the ATP Champions Race for the first time, and the hottest player on the tour after winning another Masters Series title in Cincinnati on Sunday. He did that with a 4-6 7-6 7-6 win over Mardy Fish, who used to live in the Roddick family home when they were at high school together in Boca Raton.
Roddick described Fish as ‘like a brotherâ€. Yet he played a gut-wrenching final against his friend, once hitting him so hard in the stomach with a serve that Fish had to take a stroll to recover.
Roddick also dished up a heart-breaking defeat in which Fish, who had served superbly, volleyed well and often attacked Roddick’s less powerful backhand wing, twice reached match point and never dropped serve during the match, but was still denied.
Somehow he managed to embrace Roddick afterwards. ‘I felt pretty sorry for him,†admitted Roddick. ‘I knew pretty well what he was going through and it was not nice.
‘He said ‘good job’, and I said that I was proud of him. He said it had been fun and I agreed. He has improved so much. He was in control of the match early on and I thought somehow I had to get to the tie-breaker and anything could happen then.â€
Though Roddick was arguably below his best form in the match, it was nevertheless a wonderful contest. In the end the effort had obviously drained him. ‘I’m not going to touch a racket again for at least two days,†he said.
But for the need to forge a bond with his new coach, and the encouraging improvement Roddick is making, he might not have risked running himself into the ground like he did on Sunday.
Still, it was his third title in four build-up tournaments to the Open this week — and a total of 20 hard-court victories. Only Gilbert and Andre Agassi have achieved that before, and therein lies a worry.
‘You know my coach had a great summer one time, and then I think he lost in the first round of the Open,†said Roddick. ‘Everything that has happened this summer is out the door when you start a grand slam.â€
So, although Roddick has added variety to his serve — he is starting to come to the net much better — and although he is cooler and more calculating, he will reach New York a little overplayed.
A few days ago there was no doubt he was the unofficial favourite. Now it would seem less certain. —