Andy's Reappearing Act

There isn’t much love for Andy Roddick around TENNIS.com's neck of the woods. There’s isn’t much hate, either, but that may make it even worse—there isn’t much of anything. If it’s true that the only thing worse than having people talk about you is not having people talk about you (who said that? Oscar Wilde? Jesus?), then the biggest tennis star in the U.S. has it pretty rough here. Our international cast of commenters has claimed this as Federer-Nadal territory. Roddick’s lunchbucket game and perceived ugly American qualities are generally beneath mention.

OK, I agree that Roddick lacks the elegance of Federer and the innocent charisma of Nadal—not to mention many of their skills—but one thing you can say about our ugly American is that he’s played his share of great matches. His monster serve coupled with a less-than-monstrous return game make for lots of close sets, and his high-spirited personality often turns them into crowd-pleasing contests. Think El Aynaoui in Melbourne in 2003, Federer at Wimbledon in 2004, Blake in Indy last summer, Tursunov in Davis Cup last fall, Federer again in Shanghai last November, Ancic in Melbourne this year—the sport would be poorer without those battles.

Now you can add, on a slightly lower plane, Roddick’s final against Nicolas Mahut Sunday at Queen’s. This was a throwback match and a minor classic. You had an inspired underdog trying for his first career title, and a favorite hanging on for dear life and trying to get his confidence back after a long, dry spring. Best of all they showed off an old-fashioned contrast in styles, with Mahut serving and volleying on everything and Roddick hammering away at him from the baseline.

Our photo editor at TENNIS, David Rosenberg, has always sworn by Mahut’s entertaining talents, but I was skeptical. Whatever the former world-champion junior offered in skills, I couldn’t see past his overdone hair, weirdly soft-footed walk, and semi-sadistic way with ball kids. But consider me converted for the moment—maybe the Frenchman is just better on TV. Mahut, ranked below No. 100 and recently scolded for his attitude by his French training group, lit up this event. He beat Ivan Ljubicic and Rafael Nadal, took the first set from Roddick, and reached championship point in the second. He did it all with a single-minded forward-rushing style based on deep serves and strong-armed volleys. He also came up with a pretty good method for handling the American’s serve. Mahut deliberately blocked the ball back very short. His most successful returns crawled over the net and forced Roddick to hit up on the ball from an awkward position, the same way that Federer’s short slice backhands do to everyone not named Nadal. It’s a little counterintuitive—hit the weakest return possible—but it’s a play Roddick’s opponents might want to consider at Wimbledon.

Mahut's game mirrored his physique—lean, raw-boned, without an ounce of fat. It’s a tennis frame from the serve-and-volley era, when range and wingspan meant more than durable legs. Mahut also hits an old-school Eastern forehand and one-handed backhand; the resulting flatness of his strokes works well on grass. His serve was hit to set up his volley rather than to win the point outright, though he did collect his share of aces. Most impressive may have been his second serve, which he pounded fearlessly to the corners of the box.

It all worked so well for Mahut that, if you hadn't known better, you would have thought he was the favorite. He won the key points, ambushing Roddick with a break to end the first set and coming back in the second-set tiebreaker to suddenly hold a match point. If only Mahut could have that point back! Roddick served and came to net, but the Frenchman maintained control from the baseline. After a bang-bang rally, he found himself with a sitter forehand pass. Roddick helplessly awaited his fate at the net. Somehow, it all seemed too easy; this is the way veterans and top players win on grass, by sneaking up at the right moments and grabbing the one or two points that will decide the outcome. But Mahut is not a veteran or a top player; he’s a quintessential journeyman searching for his first title. He’s still searching, because he drilled what should have been the winning forehand into the middle of the net.

Roddick, rather than turn around, backed up to the baseline and watched Mahut the whole way—he knew the match had turned. To his credit, Mahut refused to go away in the third. He continued to hit solid high volleys, make spectacular diving gets, drill forehand winners from the baseline, and pick up half-volleys at the net. Late in the match, he put one of those half-volleys on the back of the baseline, where Roddick hesitated before missing his passing shot. Roddick stared at the line, then turned to the crowd and said with a slight smile, “I thought he might have actually actually missed one there.”

Mahut is in the qualies at Wimbledon this week. Tennis fans should hope he makes it to the main draw; the other players should hope he doesn’t.

Roddick made his annual post-clay reappearance in the usual manner. This was his fourth win at Queen’s in five years. He played well in both the final and in his semifinal against a moody Dmitry Tursunov. Roddick served well—down 1-2, 0-30 in the second, with the match potentially slipping away, he hammered three aces. He returned decently, forcing Mahut to dig out a lot of volleys, and he seemed to be moving well for his forehand, which was consistent. Roddick also actively looked to move forward and tried to do it in a somewhat novel and smart way. When he got a midcourt forehand, rather than crushing it, he spun it high and deep and heavy, which gave him time to get into a better volleying position.

Beyond that, I found myself wondering again: What should we make of Roddick as a personality? Is he an ugly American, a frat boy who bullies his way to victory; or does he bring an energy and overt desire to the court that’s largely missing in today’s men’s game? Roddick himself answered this pretty well in an interview with Pete Bodo in TENNIS in the spring: “You don’t become a tennis player by being a frat boy. With me you can look at the negative or positive, there’s a little of both there.” That’s the way it seemed Sunday at Queen’s—Roddick brought some negative and some positive to the proceedings:

After winning the second set, he threw his fist toward Mahut and screamed. Was this an unnecessary gesture of cruel triumph, or a spontaneous celebration that fired himself and the crowd up? I saw a little of both in it.

In the third set, Roddick hit a forehand on a key point that clipped the very outside edge of the line. Before the linesman could make a sound, Roddick bellowed, “Yep!” as if to preempt any other possible verdict. Uncool and unfair gamesmanship? Or just part of what it takes to win in the cutthroat world of pro tennis? Little of both.

Finally, Mahut challenged an out line call on his serve during the second-set tiebreaker. Roddick immediately announced that he’d seen the ball clearly out and even vaguely threatened Hawk-Eye: “If that thing says it’s in…” Of course, that’s exactly what Hawk-Eye said. Rather than explode, Roddick, in the grand tradition of his coach, Jimmy Connors, took the clown’s route. He got on his knees and put his face an inch from the line, pretending to look for a mark. As one of the British announcers in the booth said, “He bristles and bullies, but then he flashes a cheeky smile and all is forgiven.”

That’s why Roddick, everything taken together, is good for tennis. He can annoy, he can entertain, he can be a jerk to guys he doesn't respect, but in the end the feeling I get is that his reactions are natural and human, and he’s better at expressing them than most players. Perhaps it’s because he’s American, but I feel like I understand the guy; sometimes I like him and sometimes I don't (little of both again). The humor, the directness, the arrogance, the competitiveness, the entitlement, the will to intimidate—he’s a larger than life version of a lot of U.S. kids, and he gives tennis fans something to react to. Compare him, say, to his opponent in the semifinals, Tursunov. The Russian is more talented, fluid, and impressive as a player, but he’s utterly detached, even a mope, whether he’s winning or losing—and we know Tursunov has plenty of personality. There’s no sense of desire, which is all we really want from a player we’re paying money to see. Roddick is only desire—half of his volleys appear to go in strictly because he wills them to, not because he's hit them cleanly—and that’s what makes so many of his matches, whether you like his game or not, worth watching.