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Roddick Agonizes Over Loss to Schuettler
Andy anointed year-end No. 1
By Sandra Harwitt
Special to tennisreporters.net
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Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA
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FROM
THE ATP TENNIS MASTERS CUP IN HOUSTON – As Andy Roddick
found out Thursday at the Tennis Masters Cup with every silver
lining there can come a gray cloud.
Roddick’s silver lining arrived Wednesday night as he became
the youngest American – and first American since Andre Agassi
in 1999 – to end the year as the No. 1 player in the world.
Interestingly, it was Agassi who presented Roddick with the No.
1 ranking when he defeated Juan Carlos Ferrero in their round-robin
match, a victory that prevented the Spaniard from trying to take
the top spot away from the 21-year-old Floridian.
The gray cloud came when he followed the No. 1 honor with a difficult
4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3) loss to Rainer Schuettler Thursday afternoon.
Andy takes losses hard and it was clear to see that he barely
could squeak out a smile during an on-court presentation where
former President George Bush handed Roddick the year-end No. 1
trophy.
Indeed, this defeat could signify trouble for Roddick, who at
1-1 in his Red Group of the round-robin competition could not
even end up in the semifinals.
After taking some time to shake off the loss, Roddick did his
best to put the last 24 hours, not to mention the last six months
in which he was the hottest player on the tour, into perspective.
“I think it’s a very sweet day for me,” Roddick
said. “I’m going to try to forget the fact that I
didn’t play well. I just have to keep in perspective the
big picture. In that aspect, it was very good.”
That sounded quite good and so did some other comments that Roddick
uttered, such as, “Obviously, I was angry and annoyed but
at the same time I did realize that this was a culmination of
the whole year. And I wasn’t gonna spoil that by having
a bad attitude about it just because I didn’t play well
on one day.”
Nevertheless, until Roddick’s good friend, Mardy Fish, took
matters into his own hand, it was easy to see that Roddick was
internally still beating himself up about the loss. His serve
stayed back at the hotel; the six double faults he registered
in the final set after leading 3-0 were hard to stop thinking
about. Indeed, it was a double fault on that put Schuettler in
position to serve out the match in the final-set tiebreak.
CHAMPAGNE BATH
Fish, armed with two bottles of expensive Moet & Chandon champagne
decided to toast Roddick in style for his feat of ending the year
at No. 1 – he came up behind the table where Roddick was
sitting in the interview room and poured the entire contents of
both bottles all over his friend.
“What the hell are you doing here, Fish?” said Roddick,
complaining that “I smell like happy hour right now.”
Roddick got up from the table to playfully tackle Fish and then
returned the favor, pouring a bottle of champagne over the latter,
who ended the year with a No. 20 ranking and his first career
title at Stockholm.
The mood changed as Roddick kept sniffing the champagne on him
for the rest of the proceedings.
The other thing that Roddick was able to sniff out is that Schuettler
presents a continuing problem for him. The German, who ousted
Roddick from the Australian Open semifinals to reach his first
career Grand Slam final, has beaten Roddick on three of their
four meetings. Interestingly, Roddick won their first encounter
on clay, while Schuettler has controlled their three meetings
on hard court.
Schuettler is a pugnacious guy on the court and Roddick never
seems able to swipe the guy away as he does with most other opponents.
“I think it’s just the fact that he makes you work
every point,” Roddick said. “He puts a lot of balls
in the court. I still feel like I haven’t had my best day
against Rainer. So that’s a little frustrating. When he
goes out there, he has to put his working boots on. He goes about
it every day. It’s pretty impressive.”
Roddick comprehends that the effort he put forth in the second
half of the season – winning at Queen’s Club, semifinal
showing at Wimbledon, titles at Indianapolis, Montreal, Cincinnati
and the US Open – might finally be catching up with him.
“I think a lot of the guys are pretty trashed, to be honest.
I think I’ve been trying to put up a pretty solid front
for the last couple of weeks. But, I fooled you. You know, it’s
definitely taking its toll on you towards the end of it.”
GILBERT HELPS RODDICK SHIFT GEARS
Fred Mullane/
Camerawork USA |
Brad Gilbert, now the only coach in history
to have coached two guys who ended the year in the No. 1 position
– Agassi in 1999 and now Roddick – was willing to
weigh in on his new pupil to tennisreporters.net and
less than a handful of other journalists at the tournament.
The arrival of Gilbert coincides with the major breakthrough for
Roddick as the former player was called to action starting at
the Queen’s Club tournament in early June.
The year might be over and Roddick might be talking about taking
a bit of time off, but the forward-thinking Gilbert is thinking
about practice, practice, practice.
“We’re going to work really hard in December to get
ready and work on a lot of things and get ready for next year,”
he said. “The most important thing is to improve –
you got to improve – he has to improve every year in this
game.”
Gilbert was quick to point out that Roddick is now facing a new
experience of being the hunted, where every player from No. 2
to No. 200 is “gunning” for a win over the world No.
1. Gilbert also acknowledged that life is different for Roddick
now, who probably intensified his notoriety last weekend when
he hosted “Saturday Night Live.”
“The biggest part are the demands are different now –
he’s not Andy Roddick the kid anymore, he’s Andy Roddick
the superstar and that takes a little while to get used to,”
Gilbert said. “Every week there’s press demands and
you need security to go everywhere – these are things you
have to get used to. He’s doing fine – sometimes more
a grind than other times but that’s his responsibility and
it’s part of the game.”
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