Loss dims Roddick's moment
Loss dims Roddick's moment
By Karen Crouse, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 14, 2003
HOUSTON -- Andy Roddick was like the man who's on his way out the door for his
wedding when he finds out he lost an important business account.
Sitting off to the side with his head in his hands, Roddick looked like the
first-time father who has a fender bender on the way to the hospital to see his
newborn.
Thursday was a milestone day for the Boca Raton resident, but Rainer Schuettler
hung a 4-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) defeat on Roddick that weighed on him like a mills
tone.
Roddick had clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking Wednesday night when Juan
Carlos Ferrero, his closest pursuer, lost for the second time in as many matche
s at the Masters Series Cup.
The newly crowned king arrived at the Westside Tennis Center some 12 hours late
r for his official coronation and struck a 134 mph winner on his opening servic
e point that was about as subtle as a trumpet's blare.
Alas, Roddick's serve went downhill from there. He would put less than 50 perce
nt of his first serves in play in the first set and double fault six times in
the third, most notably on the penultimate point of the tiebreak. Watching
Roddick steer his second serve into the net in so critical a situation was no
less startling a sight than Mariano Rivera walking in the winning run or Mia
Hamm scoring an own goal.
"It's pretty out of the ordinary for me," said Roddick, who couldn't camouflage
his disappointment afterward, not even when former President Bush, an avid tenn
is fan who attended the match with wife Barbara, presented him with the Waterfo
rd crystal trophy that was Roddick's prize for finishing the year at No. 1.
"I'm proud to be his friend and Barbara and I are very, very proud to be a part
of this and congratulate our No. 1 player," the former president and Houstonian
said before giving Roddick the trophy and a hug.
Roddick, the 13th different player to rise to No. 1 since the year-ending ranki
ngs were instituted in 1973, mustered a smile but it looked strained. He took
no solace in the fact that he nearly beat Schuettler for the first time in thre
e tries on hard courts despite nursing the letdown that inevitably follows the
realization of an impossible dream.
Roddick was still mulling over his misplayed points and wallowing in the defeat
when Mardy Fish, a fellow pro and former high-school teammate of Roddick's, cau
ght up with him in the training room a half hour after the match.
Fish, who lived with Roddick and his family during his junior year at Boca Prep,
told him, "Did you think when we were 15 years old that six years later Andre
Agassi winning (a match) would give you the No. 1 ranking in the world?"
That was just the dose of perspective Roddick needed. As if to top off his poin
t, Fish would barge into Roddick's post-match press conference a few minutes
later and douse Roddick, who was in mid-thought, with two celebratory bottles
of champagne.
Roddick excused himself from the podium long enough to wrestle Fish to the grou
nd. After pinning the noted prankster, Roddick turned his attention back to the
reporters. He apologized for smelling "like Happy Hour," as he put it, and said
with a smile that was for real, "What was the question?"
That his first post-match smiles had to be pulled out of Roddick like teeth has
to make fans of U.S. tennis ecstatic. Because let's face it, if ever there was
a day tailor-made for complacency, this was it.
You have to believe that if Roddick couldn't readily enjoy the beautiful day fo
r the single cloud in the sky, he's going to be a tough No. 1 to topple.
It could be Roddick's saving grace that he isn't easily satisfied because his
most difficult days definitely are ahead of him. The 21-year-old might as well
borrow the tennis shirt that Schuettler wore, which had a concentric circle
pattern that looked curiously like a bull's-eye.
"Andy has to work on his game a lot because guys are going to be gunning for
him," said Roddick's coach Brad Gilbert. "In every sport if you don't improve,
the pack catches up to you. You don't say, 'Okay, I have to be No. 1 or I have
to win two Slams.' You say 'I've got to improve.' And he's got to improve every
area of his game."
Nobody understands that better than Roddick. As he was saying right before he
received his bubbly bath from Fish, "There's always gonna be something else. It
's gonna be, 'We know he did it one year. He won one Slam. But how's he gonna
keep it up now?' "
It says here Roddick will figure it out. Where there's his will to win, there's
a way.
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