NEW YORK—Andy Roddick is retiring from tennis just as swiftly, forcefully, and unexpectedly as he crashed the game in 2001 as a raw-boned youth of 19, the first teenager since Pete Sampras to win at least three titles in the same year.
The face of U.S. tennis for over a decade, Roddick made the announcement today, on his 30th birthday, in a hastily called press conference that caught everyone by surprise.
But the decision to quit after his final match of this U.S. Open crystallized in Roddick’s mind during his first-round match with the youngster Rhyne Williams, one of the American players to whom Roddick has been either icon, role model, or mentor—sometimes all of them rolled into one.
“I just feel like it's time,” Roddick said, his signature baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Those eyes were dry, though, and the famous if sometimes acerbic Roddick wit was intact despite the fundamental gravity of the occasion. He continued, “I don't know that I'm healthy enough or committed enough to go another year. I've always wanted to, in a perfect world, finish at this event. I have a lot of family and friends here. I've thought all year that I would know when I got to this tournament. When I was playing my first round, I knew.”
Veteran pundits were surprised by the timing of Roddick’s decision, but hardly shocked. Much was made of the long, almost wistful gaze with which Roddick regarded Wimbledon’s Centre Court as he left it in July, a third-round loser to ATP No. 5 David Ferrer. Roddick denied at the time that he had bidden the club a silent good-bye, but clearly he was already grappling with the issue. It just happened to mature here and now.
“Its been a process,” he said, when asked how long he’d been pondering his choice. “It's certainly not days. I don't know that I would have had you all come in here and waste your time if it had been days.” Roddick smiled, the gathering of reporters and perhaps two dozen of his closest friends, acquaintances, and associates laughed. “Certain parts throughout the year, I've thought about it. You know, just with the way my body feels, with the way that I'm able to feel like I'm able to compete now, I don't know that it's good enough. I don't know that I've ever been someone who's interested in existing on tour.”
Ironically, Roddick is retiring at a time when more and more players, including his lifelong friend Mardy Fish and his career-long nemesis Roger Federer, are busy deconstructing the idea that the playing life ends at that milestone age of 30.
On the other hand, the amount of effort Roddick has had to put in to remain in the mix near the top of the game, the toll of his recent injuries (they included back, shoulder and hamstring problems just this year), and the uneven results he’s produced as he slid from the Top 10 to a present ranking of No. 22 were enough to convince him to shut down one of the more interesting—and sometimes baffling—of high-profile careers.
“I think wear and tear and miles is something that's not really an age thing,” Roddick said. “You know, if you look at my contemporaries that started with me, Roger is the only one that's still going and still going strong. It's a matter of how I feel. I feel like I'm (not) able to compete at the highest level. Frankly, these guys have gotten really, really, really good. I'm not sure that with compromised health I can do what I want to do right now.”
Roddick, under the tutelage of a succession of expert coaches (including Brad Gilbert, Jimmy Connors, and Larry Stefanki), turned over every stone in the field looking for a solution to his basic shortcomings—a surprisingly underdeveloped attacking game for a player with one of the best serves in tennis history, a lack of quickness, and a relatively weak backhand that became more and more of a liability as the tennis moved into the era of the big forehand.
When Roddick won his lone Grand Slam title in 2003 and became the year-end no. 1, his forehand was an outstanding weapon when used in conjunction with that formidable serve. But as the general level of competition improved (along with advances in technology that helped returners more than the servers), Roddick lost that edge. By the late stage of his career, he was neither fish nor fowl—a power player who was most comfortable playing from behind the baseline, no longer capable of dictating to his rivals or smothering them with power.
To some extent, this slow slide toward an irrelevance that he’s now ensured he’ll avoid has been killing him, but it’s also shaped him into a much-loved figure in most tennis outposts, particularly at Wimbledon, where he lost three finals and a semifinal to Federer, including that 16-14 in-the-fifth final of 2009.
“At the end of the day, I know that people view it as a career, last little while, of some hard knocks. But I got to play. I got to play (to) a crowd, play in Wimbledon finals, be the guy on a Davis Cup team for a while. Those are opportunities not a lot of people get. As much as I was disappointed and frustrated at times, I'm not sure that I ever felt sorry for myself or begrudged anybody any of their success.”
Roddick’s legacy will be similar to that of Federer’s in one important way that has nothing to do with statistics or titles: He’ll be remembered as a man who truly loved the game and gave himself over wholly to it. This fidelity not only overwhelmed what shortcomings he had, it also enabled him to absorb all the tough blows and move on, continuing to search for answers that didn’t exist to questions that he couldn’t duck. And that rewarded him with a record of consistency that will stand up to any amount of scrutiny.
Roddick kept his place in the year-end Top 10 for nine years. He’s just one of 19 men to amass 600 ATP tour wins, and his 33 Davis Cup singles wins (against 12 losses) are second only to John McEnroe’s 41.
“I was pretty good for a long time,” Roddick said, when he was asked what he was most proud of. “The reason I gave earlier about not feeling like I could be committed to this thing a hundred percent, that's one of the things I'm proud of. That for 13 or 14 years, I was invested fully, every day. I've seen a lot of people throughout that time be invested for a year, kind of tap out for a year, come back. I've been pretty good about keeping my nose to the grindstone.”
Roddick has always been the kind of guy who leads with his chin. But where he once was a wise-ass, he’s now a wit. His fuse at times was surprisingly short (and remained so as far as tennis officials were concerned). But over the years he came to a comprehensive understanding of his job and, more important, a keen appreciation for how kind fate has been to bless him with that big serve, those powerful quads, and a sharp mind—one that would not be denied this week as much as Roddick might have wanted to put off the decision to stow his racquets.
When Roddick was asked why he made his decision public before he played his final match he replied:
“I think I wanted an opportunity to say good bye to people, as well. I don't know how tomorrow's going to go. I hope it goes well and I hope I'm sticking around. I just imagine being off the court tomorrow in an empty locker room.
“I think I wanted a chance to say good bye. Also, if I do run into some emotions tomorrow or in four days or however long, I don't want people to think I'm a little unstable, or more unstable (smiling). That's why I came to this decision.”
I don’t think Roddick need have worried about appearing unstable, even in jest; he’s been the rock of American tennis for over a decade, and nothing that happens here these two weeks could change that. The biggest muscle in Roddick’s body always has been his heart, and this decision shows that despite the bitter disappointments he’s known recently on the tennis courts of the world, he knows how to listen to it.