Roddick and Other Thoughts

What do you do if you’re Andy Roddick and you just made another early exit from a Grand Slam? Fire the coach? Maybe. Work harder? That doesn’t seem to be the problem. So what is the problem?

The problem for Roddick in his loss to number 54 ranked, Marcos Baghdatis, was his positioning with respect to the baseline. Patrick McEnroe on ESPN2 correctly pointed out that Roddick was playing many of his shots from behind the baseline, thus giving Baghdatis the chance to run more shots down. Certainly Baghdatis played well and that was demonstrated by his excellent winners to errors ratio. However, Roddick’s willingness to rally with the Cyrpiot rather than push him around led to his downfall.

At last year’s US Open, Gilles Muller mercilessly picked on the Roddick backhand by hitting all of his approach shots in that direction. Andy is very stiff on the backhand side and struggles to make the shot under pressure. One common thread between Roddick’s last 2 Grand Slam losses is the decreasing effectiveness of his serve. Both Baghdatis and Muller were able to get a read on the big first serve and return it effectively. In the same manner that the women’s tour adjusted to the physicality of the Williams sisters, the men’s tour is coping with the Roddick serve. Since that weapon has been defused a bit, does Roddick have enough game to stay near the top? That’s a question for Andy to answer in the next few months.

Other Thoughts

· What’s up with Tommy Haas’ clothes? Does Blackwell have a tennis worst dressed list? If so, Tommy is running away with the 2006 award.

· Note to ESPN: please stop inviting Dick Enberg to broadcast at Grand Slam events. His inane commentary is infuriating, and I still haven’t forgiven him for butchering the inaugural Breakfast at Wimbledon broadcast in 1979.

· Patrick Rafter and Gabriela Sabatini are 2 of the 2006 Tennis Hall of Fame inductees that were announced today. Are they deserving of enshrinement? The Hall’s criteria for entry are somewhat nebulous so I find it hard to argue for or against anyone with real vigor. If you compare the records of Rafter and Sabatini with prior inductees, they appear to be deserving candidates. Rafter achieved a number 1 ranking in singles and that in itself may merit Hall of Fame status. However, does that make Thomas Muster and Carolos Moya Hall of Famers?

· We have several friends who made the trek to Australia for this year’s Open and I’m definitely envious. I want to go next year, if for nothing else than to see how good Andy Roddick is at poker.

· Martina Hingis’ serve hasn’t improved enough to beat the likes of Kim Clijsters, even if Kim is injured. Samanth Stosur was outhitting the Swiss Miss from the baseline, but wasn’t consistent enough to pull off the upset. Clijsters won’t have that problem. She’ll push Hingis around the court and force a lot of short balls out of her, with which Kim won’t have any problems dealing.