It's That Time of Year
This man is now the highest ranked American-male tennis player
This man is not.
And this is why.
That being said...
it is now time to stop, i repeat, stop talking about Andy Roddick so freakin' much. It's not like this is the first time I've ever said this, but what more do people need now? He lost for the same reasons he's been losing since he won the US Open now three years ago--because he hasn't improved his game since three years ago, and now everyone is completely adjusted to his game. Before, there were only a very select few who could beat Roddick, mainly Roger Federer, but now, everyone from James Blake to Tim Henman can successfully win against Andy. And how is that? By returning his once thought unstoppable serve. Sports evolve, people serve the ball a lot faster than they did twenty years ago, and they will likely serve the ball faster twenty years from now. Roddick came on the scene with a crazy-fast serve, a serve that won him a lot of smaller tournaments, and finally paid off at the US Open in 2003. But he relied on this strength, and only this strength, for too long, neglecting the weaker parts of his game...pretty much everything else, and when field stepped up, and adjusted to his game, he was left in the evolutionary dust.
There were so many three-shot rallies where Roddick would serve, Murray would return, and Roddick, so dumbfounded that anyone could send the ball back across the net, found himself trying to pull of some awkward-ass shot, only to dunk it into the net, or sail it long. He simply neglected the other parts of his game. Did he think his serve would bail him out forever? His forehand has weakened, his backhand is mediocre, and his return game is absolutely abysmal. A lot of this has to do with his firing of coach Dean Goldfine during the height of his success--of course the worst move he could have made. His ego got in the way, and he was too stubborn to try to fix his game, and now his stint at the top is over.
Praise and embrace James Blake! He is the real deal, and is totally on the rise. He's a comeback kid who was once thought to be big stuff way before Roddick came along, but had to endure breaking his neck, becoming infected with a bacteria paralyzing half of his face, and the death of his father...all within a few months of each other!!! Any one of those things would be just cause for a time out, but now he's back, and better than ever. Eventhough he's already lost this tournament, going out in the third round, the same round as Andy Roddick, he's been having a lot more success overall, and now has surpassed Roddick, a Roddick who is now out of the top ten, as the top American.
Long live James!