Thought of the Day
January 18, 2008 1 Comment
It’s been awhile since we have seen Andy Roddick has angry as he was on Friday at the Aussie Open. He broke his racket, verbally assaulted the chair ref, and even rattled off a personal best 42 aces. But Andy’s rage caught up to him, as he fell to Philipp Kohlschreiber (ranked 29th in the world) 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (9), 6-7 (3), 8-6 in a
third-round match that started after 10 p.m. Friday and finished at
2:04 a.m. Saturday.
Every since the emergence of the Federer Express on the world stage, Roddick has always been at ends with, well, himself really. He once unstoppable game of power and agility, was suddenly no match for a stronger, quicker, and smarter Federer. Roddick’s aggression and despair have filtered into every one of his matches since.
Think about it…when is the last time you can remember Roddick winning a meaningful match? Exactly. I suppose it’s more of a testament to Federer’s ability as a player, but nothing like this should be happening. This kind of downfall is unprecedented. Everyone knows that Sampras was better than Agassi, those numbers are clear. But did that stop Andre from becoming one of the top 5 best of all time? Absolutely not! He realized that taking a back seat to Sampras was inevitable, and the sooner that Roddick can realize that he’s rolling shotgun in Federer’s Benz for the rest of both of their careers, the better off he’ll be.
In fairness, you’d have to consider Roddick’s successful performance in the Davis Cup final in December–and his play all year, in fact, in that international team competition–as pretty meaningful.