"I'm the most successful bad player ever."
America's favorite star/punching bag Andy Roddick quite ceremoniously announced his retirement from tennis ahead of his Friday night second-round match against Australia's Bernard Tomic. He did so in poetic fashion on Thursday, on the occasion of his 30th birthday. It was remindful to me of my grandfather passing from this mortal coil a few years ago on his birthday, somehow a seamless, fitting bookend to a life. And now Roddick has done the same, but this in the matter of his career. May he find every happiness in his post-career goings-on, and no doubt he will be busy.
Without further ado (as that was quite enough), here is a rundown of the first Raggedy Andy's greatest hits, misses—and Mrs.—in his life to date. Drop a line if you think something is glaringly missing.
- "Stay in school, kids, or you'll end up being an umpire." Long before Caroline Wozniacki and Julia Goerges questioned the education levels of chair umpires in their early-2012 matches, Roddick spoke out forcefully and yet with an amused wink about his various mishaps with tournament match officials. Even so, this leads to a true miss ...
- He went from irked to irksome at the 2010 U.S. Open after a lineswoman called a foot fault on him. The truth is that line judges aren't to speak back to players, really, in the midst of a match. This one made the mistake of answering Andy's cloying query in such a way that he just latched onto the implausibility of her.