Wimbledon Recap: Roddick vs. Yen-Hsun Lu
American tennis player Andy Roddick's trademark is his serve and volley. However, the strength of his game did not seem to be delivering the winning results that he is used to during his match on Monday against the Taiwanese tennis player Yen-Hsun Lu. Roddick lost the match to unseeded Lu 4-6 7-6 (7-3) 7-6 (7-4) 6-7 (5-7) 9-7.
Lu is enjoying an unexpected entry at Wimbledon this year. Although he made his debut in the men's doubles at Wimbledon in 2009, he wasn't able to make it past the first round. Last Friday, he became the first Taiwanese man to reach the fourth-round of a Grand Slam tennis tournament when his third-round opponent withdrew in the third set due to an injury.
Despite Lu's superb performance during the match, where he was able to keep up with Roddick's power serves, Roddick was expected to come out a winner after battling it out with the Taiwanese player in three closely fought sets. Despite that prediction, after winning the first set, three-time finalist Roddick lost the next two sets against Lu.
Roddick got the better of Lu in the first set, as he broke his serve in the last game of the set and closed it with 6 games to 4. In the second set, Lu fought back as he served well and followed up by winning the majority of his second serve points. Lu was then able to capitalize on Roddick's service points in the tiebreak, as he won the second set 7-6. Ultimately, Roddick could not keep pace with Lu in the tiebreak. He lost a few vital points on his serve and failed to come back, and as a result the American lost the tiebreak, as well as the second set.
In a closely played third set, Roddick lost the 4-1 lead to Lu as the Chinese player came back to take full advantage of Roddick's loose play and pocketed the third set in a tiebreak. Roddick worked hard to keep up but he could not maintain his typical pace in the serve and lost. Lu then led two sets to one.
Another set without a break led to the third consecutive tiebreak in the match. Roddick again started the tiebreak loosely, hitting a backhand into the net to give Lu a mini-break lead. However, Roddick earned the mini-break back to level the tiebreak at 3-3, and at 5-5 a Lu error gave Roddick set point, which Roddick managed to win with an ace to level the match at two sets apiece to stay in the game.
Lu's previous efforts at Wimbledon were when he reached the second round in 2004 and 2005. He had also reached the third round of the Australian Open in 2009. Currently Lu, ranked 82nd in the world, is the only Taiwanese player in the top 300.
“I had the chance to show the Taiwanese people that I can play good tennis," Lu told AFP. "I hope my result will pump other people up and show them they can also do it in their area. This is the positive thing for everybody.”
Lu has previously played Roddick twice this season, and lost both matches in straight sets. However, he has learned enough from those two matches to know how best to defeat Roddick, and his strategy seems to be working well so far.
“He is a really difficult player,” Lu said. “He has a big serve and he plays very well from the baseline with his chip charge and puts you under pressure.”
“If you have a chance to break him you must take it. That is the tough part and you always have the pressure of having to hold your serve to stay with him," he added.
Lu’s hard work on the court paid off and ended Roddick’s hopes of a second successive Wimbledon final.
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