Andy Roddick, America’s Number 1 tennis player, failed to impress the crowd at his second round-robin match at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
The player, who is immensely popular in England due to his success at both Wimbledon and Queen’s, was in spectacularly bad form on Wednesday afternoon. Roddick lost the match to Czech player Tomas Berdych in straight sets with a final score line of 7-5,
6-3. This is the first match that Berdych has won against Roddick in their total of five meetings on the court.
World Number 8 Andy Roddick played his first round-robin match on Monday. Although greatly supported by the crowd, he wasn’t the favourite; understandable, as he was competing against the current World Number 1 and winner of nine Grand Slam titles, Rafael
“Rafa” Nadal. However, on Wednesday, fans sided completely with the Nebraska native against his opponent, Czech Number 1 Tomas Berdych. Fans cried out slogans for Roddick, yelling, “Come on, Andy!” prior to the match at the huge O2 Arena in the East End of
London.
To the disappointment of the crowd, Andy Roddick could not give them the victory they desired. He played a match that turned tables towards the end of the opening set, with Berdych taking away the match in straight sets to push Roddick down to two losses
at the ATP World Tour Finals. Although Roddick was in superb form at his match against Rafael Nadal despite a defeat, he seemed to have reverted to his dismal performances of the year during this round.
Roddick had a head-to-head record of four victories and no losses against the 25-year-old Berdych before this match. He cruised ahead in the match on his serve and held two set points with the score line at 5-4 on Berdych’s serve. Berdych seemed shaky and
unsure of himself, starting the first set with indecisiveness. However, he made a surprising comeback to save his points, fought Roddick with a low forehand which forced the American to make an error, and then hit a forehand which gave him the next point.
At five-all, Andy Roddick made the least of a 40-15 advantage by blowing the opportunity to give Berdych the chance to enter back into the game with a 40-30 double fault. Although the Czech player was completely outdone during his match against World Number
3 Novak Djokovic, he reverted back to the same performances he had shown at the semi-finals at Roland Garros and the title match at Wimbledon. He took away the match with easy ground strokes, and challenged Roddick’s service games effortlessly.
The American took away 83 per cent of points on his first serve in the first set which deteriorated to 53 per cent in the second.
Had Djokovic defeated Nadal in their evening match, Roddick would have been out of the Event. However, he has been granted an extension into his next match against Djokovic himself.
In the meantime, Berdych was obviously ecstatic about his success, telling the crowd,
“I started this week nervously, nothing special, but today went better, and I started to play better and better.”
He will compete against Rafael Nadal in his last round robin match. The Czech pro was pleased with this draw, saying,
“I think for me that's the best schedule for this week, to be playing possibly the last match of the season against the world number one Rafael Nadal.”
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