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By Pete Bodo
I got a bit sidetracked yesterday thinking about Roger Federer, so here's the Andy Roddick follow-up I'd promised. Roddick just experienced a month unrivaled in his career, except perhaps in London last year. As much as that first major title he earned at the U.S. Open in 2003 meant to him, he was a kid back then, with no real concept of the challenges and hardships that lay in store for him. And as powerful a force as he was at Queens and Wimbledon last summer, his run ended in heartbreak when he lost that 16-14 fifth set -- the longest in Grand Slam history -- to Roger Federer in the final.
This time, he ripped off a four-week stretch that ended in a multi-dimensional triumph. He was in the final of back-to-back Masters 1000 tournaments, losing one (Indian Wells) and winning in Miami. It was a nice piece of work by a man who hadn't even been to a Masters final since 2006, when he won at Cincinnati. I call it multi-dimensional because back when Roddick was last a menacing force in tennis, the threat could be described simply: See Andy serve. See Andy win!
But this is a very different player from the firm-jawed, bright wise-ass who's always had a tendency to rub certain sensitive souls the wrong way. He's won over many critics and skeptics with his willingness to continue working on his game long after he cashed in (in terms of fame and fortune), his willingness to lend his name and labor to good causes, and his maturity. I think Andy is a realist, and an honest man, traits encapsulated by his oddly touching interruption of Roger Federer's victory speech at Wimbledon last year (he objected when Federer expressed sympathy for Roddick's plight, reminding Roger that he'd already won five titles). Roddick tends to let you know what he's thinking, and that's not always the case with public figures.
Roddick's degree of empathy might surprise some, given that shows of empathy are not compulsory exercises in a game predicated on head-to-head confrontation, where the sweat of your opponent lashes your face and stings your eyes, too. When he was pressed on that moment when Tomas Berdych (his opponent in the Miami final) lined up to serve on the wrong side of the notch, he wisely reminded his interlocutor that if you dug around in "the tapes" you'd find times when Andy had done the same thing. It was a silly (non-)issue and a throwaway moment (canonization not required, thank you), but it demonstrated Roddick's basic open-mindedness.
I make the point because while Roddick's mind hasn't been exclusively or entirely shaped by his career, his trials and travails probably have helped make him a wiser and better man. Who can better sympathize with frustration at this point than Roddick? That he's resisted taking the easy way - enjoying his celebrity and working his charisma and appeal as a conspicuously American kind of personage - is noteworthy. You get the feeling that Roddick is hype-resistant; he knows that the moment he accepts the limitations of his game is the moment he begins drifting toward the disingenuous. There's nothing phony about Andy; he's a master of "keeping it real" because his lodestar has been the quest to overcome what some see as natural limitations.
He doesn't even bridle anymore at the suggestion that his game is all-serve, which it once may have been. As he said after his win over Berdych on Sunday: I'm fine with it (that dated view). I mean, a lot of people, you know, they say the serve is fine and the rest of it's pretty average. That's all right. But there are a lot of guys with big serves who are pretty average, so there's got to be some difference."
The difference, as we know by now, is determination. And the ease with which the word is thrown around makes it easy to overlook the degree to which determination not only can make a big difference, and the extent to which it's a real and rare virtue. This is partly because most of us are lucky enough to lead lives that don't necessarily demand a great deal of determination; in some ways we've lost a sense of, and appreciation for, the quality, as easily as we pay lip service when we see it others.
It may be a bit melodramatic to cite the old saw about most men leading lives of "quiet desperation." I'm more inclined to think most of us lead lives of quiet if not entirely satisfying comfort. I can think of a dozen guys who's rankings would skyrocket if they possessed the determination of Roddick (in that sense, maybe Roddick winning that lone major at such a young age was a good thing, because it set his personal bar un-ignorably high). But I won't trash them for lacking determination. It would be like criticizing someone for not having a better musical ear, or blue instead of brown eyes.
In our new podcast (it should be up sometime this afternoon) we talk about Roddick and his coach, Larry Stefanki. I'll repeat an observation I make there. Andy Roddick is like certain kinds of dogs and horses; they love the race, they love the work. And they to be led and directed. That's another subtle asset he possesses, and which makes him different from some of his peers (Roger Federer presents a pretty good contrast, and I think the difference probably has more to do with temperament than the practical needs of either man). Roddick, as his Davis Cup record shows, has the soul of a team player - a learner and a cooperator.
You can almost break Andy's career down into three coach-based phases. In phase I, Brad Gilbert took a callow youth and helped him become a champion. In phase II, Jimmy Connors took a damaged and confused champion and helped him see his way out of his predicament. In phase III, Stefanki has undertaken the job of wringing every drop of potential out of a man who wouldn't accept that idea that he's already filled his cup to the brim, or even recognize that task as an acceptable goal. Has any man worked harder and changed as much, while showing so little quantifiable gain in the rankings?
Roddick's goals lie outside the cup, and that's the great secret of his success. For once you start measuring your accomplishments by pre-determined parameters, chances are you'll sell yourself short. Setting goals outside of your comfort zone, or beyond what might be called your perceived place in the game, doesn't necessarily work out. But never underestimate the value of hard work and, most of all, determination - not to yourself, and not as a weapon to present to an opponent.
At the end of his presser Sunday, Roddick made the point that his relatively brief coaching partnership with Connors is often cast as a failed relationship. And while the hook-up ran it's course, Andy acknowledged the critical role Connors played - first and foremost, he shored up Roddick's confidence and determination; second, he improved his backhand. That was a point that needed making. Roddick's backhand was his primary rally tool in his match with Berdych, and we can expect to see the pattern repeated in the coming weeks. The present quality of the slice backhand developed under Stefanki's tenure, but you have to give a Jimbo credit for steering Roddick in the direction that landed him where he is today.
It's pretty easy to jump on the Roddick bandwagon these days; his popularity has shot up dramatically. But I always felt that there was no reason Roddick couldn't do well on clay, and I asked him about that in Miami, after he survived a scare from Benjamin Becker to win, 7-6, 6-3. He said, "I played fine on clay last year. I did okay in Madrid and made it further in the French (fourth round) than I ever have. It's never gonna be my best surface. It's always gonna be the most challenging. But I don't think it's a surface I've ever really hated. I just know that those middle of road matches - like today for instance - I got into a hole and I served my way out, and we touched on that earlier. That's not as easy (on clay). I have to be playing well on clay to do well. Maybe on a hardcourt I can be playing okay and still manage to get through matches. We always say we play well for 20% of the year, badly for 20% of the year, and that middle 60% that makes the difference. I'm more vulnerable in that middle 60% on clay."
That's an accurate assessment, but now that Roddick has a useful backhand - and you know that slice will squat down nice and low on clay - he'll have more options to set-up his forehand. And since he's never been risk averse, you can count on him to finish points, or at least try to end them emphatically. Given that he's big, strong and in terrific physical condition I don't see why he shouldn't do well on clay. And his serve, while less of a weapon on the red dirt, will be dangerous enough to enable him to take control of rallies.
Quickness may not be Andy's greatest asset, but it isn't nearly as much of a determining factor on clay as faster surfaces. The court speed may take a little away from Andy's serve, but it will also provide him with extra time - the real issue will be whether Roddick will be prepared, mentally even more than physically, to grind. He'll always face the temptation to go for a little too much, a little more quickly, than those more comfortable on clay.
Given the past month, you'd have to be mean-spirited to scoff at Stefanki for saying of Roddick's future: “I think this is still the infancy, I really do. I think he could be similar to Agassi, where his best years are from 27 onwards. I have seen it done before. I think (that before) he was very raw and his game is starting to come to where it’s not hit and miss. When you see a guy with a weapon like Andy has, and so raw in every other aspect except perhaps the forehand, but not really know what his game plan is going to be, I think there has been a maturing. He has a lot of things to fall back on to win when he is not playing great, he does have the best serve in the game at the moment, but if you add all the other components, the slice and so on, it puts him in a different echelon.”
I'm partial to Roddick, so I'm inclined to see the truth and promise in those words. And Roddick has excellent motivation for doing well on clay, although the source of it lies across the English channel from where he'll be doing most of his clay-court grinding. Andy has a good head of steam going, and keeping it up can only help him when the brief but all-important grass court season rolls around.
I've waited a long time to see Roddick win Wimbledon, and I believe he's going to do it, if not this year, then the next. If not then, then sometime. If this somehow reveals a blind spot in my analytical abilities, I can live with that, even if no amount of determination on my part will make that happen. I'll leave the determination part to Roddick.