ANDY Roddick, the versatile. Andy Roddick, the tactical master. Andy Roddick, the intelligent.
Such descriptions have rarely been applied to the American, whose brutal serve is such a powerful weapon that he has seldom needed to vary his game or think too much about different options.
Yesterday, however, those adjectives were richly deserve
d, as he played some of the best tennis of his life to defeat Scotland's Andy Murray in four sets and reach tomorrow's final.
Roddick, a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 winner against the No3 seed, had implied beforehand that he would stick to his normal plan – if plan is not too strong a word for his serve-reliant game. But instead of keeping it simple, he varied his play well, becoming involved in long rallies, slicing backhands low over the net, and even (albeit less effectively) attempting the occasional drop shot.
Roddick and the more cerebral Stanislas Wawrinka would normally appear to have little in common as tennis players, but against Murray the No6 seed showed he had learned from the Swiss player's fourth-round battle with the Scot. Wawrinka played out of his skin at first before eventually going down in five sets: Roddick decided he would also begin as ferociously as he could, and backed himself to keep on going for longer.
If he had lost the tiebreak in the fourth set, he may have wilted badly in the decider. Or, if he had lost the third-set tiebreak, he might gradually have been pinned back by an opponent whose serve was steadily gaining in strength and accuracy. But he won both, and therefore the match, and left Centre Court around 6:40pm to the warm applause of a capacity crowd the majority of whom had hoped to see a Briton reach the final for the first time since Bunny Austin in 1938.
The opening game of the match looked like a statement of intent from Roddick, who hit top gear with his service straight away. He recorded 136 miles per hour on the first point, 140 and an ace on the third, and 137 and another ace for the game. He went even faster – 143mph – in the third, but even that early it had become apparent that there was going to be more to Roddick's game than just the big bash down the middle.
Murray himself opened serve solidly enough, and even a baffling cry from the crowd of "Come on Murray, come on England" was not enough to disconcert him. As the set wore on, however, Roddick's play was inventive – nowhere more so than in the decisive game.
Receiving at 30-30, Roddick claimed the point with an audacious drop shot. He went on the offensive on the next point, and a long, raking stroke into the right-hand corner of Murray's half of the court won the set, with the Scot able to do no more than return into the net.
Murray came roaring back, and broke Roddick without the loss of a point in the first game of the second set. It was an advantage he would not relinquish. Roddick was able to serve to stay in the set and close to 4-5, but Murray then served out, making it a set apiece with a winning service.
The third set almost began in the same vein, with Murray going 40-0 up on his opponent's serve. But Roddick recovered from that perilous position, and was soon a break up himself at 3-1 after the world No3 played a more tentative service game.
Murray's frustrations at that stage brought a citation by the umpire for an audible obscenity, but he insisted he had been misheard. The match official accepted he might have been mistaken: Murray said he "100 per cent" had been and there was no might about it.
From 5-2 down the 22-year-old from Dunblane channelled his wrath in exactly the right way. First he held serve, then he had Roddick in trouble with an imperious cross court backhand before an unforced error from the two-times losing finalist clinched the break.
Murray closed to 5-5, but Roddick then stopped the rot and the match went into its first tiebreak. Roddick took the advantage by grabbing the first mini-break for a 2-1 lead, and although Murray initially broke back to briefly take the lead, the American was soon back on top. An ace on second serve gave him set point at 7-6, and although Murray saved that one, he was unable to do so at the second time of asking and Roddick took the tiebreak 9-7.
As the fourth set wore on and the possibility of defeat loomed larger, Murray appeared to tighten up a little bit, although that could have been due to the energy he had expended rather than tension. Roddick, on the other hand, looked like he was as confident as he had been at the start of the match, and showed no sign of choking.
As in the third, there was little or nothing between the two men all the way to the fourth set tiebreak. Roddick again broke first in it, going 3-1 up, and although shortly after that Murray pulled off a spectacular winner to close to 4-5, the end was near.
Roddick had two match points at 6-4. He could not convert the first, but made no mistake at the second time of asking, claiming the tiebreak 7-5, and with it that third final against Federer.
The full article contains 938 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
