Everyone figured that del Potro might be the end of the road for Roddick. At this point in their careers, del Potro just has too many ways to beat a player like Roddick. It's a fascinating loss for two reasons. First, del Potro was the player that beat Safin before he retired. Second, del Potro's
When Andy Roddick came up around 2000, he was the next Pete Sampras. The problem? Roger Federer. When Pete Sampras retired, he left something of a vacuum. There were supposed successors to the mantle of Sampras. Two came from men who beat Sampras in 2000 and 2001. Those were Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt. Those
Andy Roddick might love nothing more than to have a Jimmy Connors-like run through the US Open. One might never see a 39 year old make a deep run in a Slam again, though as recently as 2005, Andre Agassi, in his mid 30s, made a run to the finals. Roddick just turned 30 years
Many top players have a last hurrah. Kim Clijsters said at the start of the year that she planned to retire at the US Open, so people knew, ahead of time, that this was it for her. No one expected she would lose in the second round to Laura Robson, but so it goes. The
As they say, stats lie. Andy Roddick's head-to-head with Novak Djokovic showed a 5-3 lead for the American. However, the two hadn't played each other since 2010 prior to Djokovic's breakout year in 2011. And Roddick's ranking has taken a tumble to roughly 30, before his recent success at Eastbourne and Atlanta which has elevated
When Roger Federer was slated to play Julien Benneteau in the third round of Wimbledon, few expected that the journeyman Frenchman would push the Swiss maestro to the brink coming within 2 points of the upset. After all, Federer rarely loses to players his age. So when Benneteau was slated to meet Federer after his
Muller? Muller? Gilles Muller comes from the tiny country of Luxembourg and was once the top ranked junior in the world. That success never quite translated to the pro tour. Muller has had the occasional upset, most notably, a first round upset of Andy Roddick in the US Open in 2005. Muller has only been
There are players on tour that have been there for some number of years. Not everyone who plays pro tennis hoists trophies week after week. Some labor even when titles are scarce. After all, they are still among the top 100 or so players in the world. More than ten years ago, Gilles Muller, from
Thirty years ago, in the early 1980s, tennis in the US was still predominantly American. Indeed, in the 1970s and before, only a handful of counties were producing top players, including the US, Australia, and well, maybe France. In those days, Swedish tennis was riding the surge of Bjorn Borg with players like Mats Wilander
Today, the Americans played. On court today were Brian Baker, Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, and Sam Querrey. But before we start, the upset of the tournament has, alas, gone down. Lukas Rosol, who showed no nerves, in a boldly played fifth set, and took the number two seed and ostensibly, the favorite, out, found himself
