Andy Roddick, always a champion in the interview room, said he was humbled by Tuesday’s announcement that he will be enshrined in the International Tennis Hall of Fame on July 22 in Newport, Rhode Island.
“I know the standard lines of how honored you are and how much it means to you,” Roddick said. “It’s different. It’s extremely true. I’m not Roger [Federer]. I’m not Serena [Williams]. I’m not one of these people where it’s just a matter of years passing. So I’m incredibly thankful.
“I knew I was in [the Hall of Fame] with a shot, kind of like my playing career, but you didn’t know if you were going to get over that hurdle. ‘Hall of Famer’ has a deep meaning to me.”
Roddick was the last American man to win a Grand Slam tournament. The 2003 US Open champion will be joined in the class of 2017 by four-time Grand Slam champion Kim Clijsters and four-time Paralympian medalist in wheelchair tennis Monique Kalkman-van den Bosch.
Roddick, a former world No. 1, retired after the 2012 season after winning 32 career singles titles and $20 million in prize money. Perhaps his most memorable match, however, was a loss.
Roddick fell to Federer 16-14 in the fifth set of the dramatic 2009 Wimbledon final.
It was the third time Roddick lost a Wimbledon final to the 17-time Grand Slam champion.
Andrew Stephen “Andy” Roddick (born August 30, 1982) is an American former professional tennis player.
He became a Grand Slam singles champion when he won the title at the 2003 US Open, defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final. He is the most recent North American male player to win a Grand Slam singles event, the most recent to reach the top ranking, and the most recent to claim the year-end world No. 1 (2003). Roddick reached four other Grand Slam finals (Wimbledon in 2004, 2005, and 2009, and the US Open in 2006), losing to Roger Federer every time; the pair had a lopsided rivalry from 2001 to 2012. Roddick was ranked in the top 10 for 9 consecutive years between 2002 and 2010, at year’s end, and won five Masters Series in that period. He is married to Brooklyn Decker, a former Sports Illustrated swimwear model and actress.
On August 30, 2012, during the 2012 US Open and on his 30th birthday, Roddick announced that he would retire after the tournament. Following a fourth-round defeat by Juan Martín del Potro, Roddick retired from the sport with the aim of focusing on his foundation, the Andy Roddick Foundation, in future years.
In 2015, Roddick played for the Austin Aces in World Team Tennis. This was his eighth season in World Team Tennis and the fifth team he has played for.
Roddick was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Blanche (Corell), a school teacher, and Jerry Roddick, a businessman. Roddick has two older brothers, Lawrence and John (All-American tennis player at University of Georgia [1996–98] and head tennis coach at the University of Oklahoma), who were both promising tennis players at a young age.
Roddick lived in Austin, Texas, from age 4 until he was 11, and then moved to Boca Raton, Florida, in the interest of his brother’s tennis career, attending Boca Prep International School, and graduating in the Class of 2000. Roddick played varsity basketball in high school alongside his future Davis Cup teammate Mardy Fish, who trained and lived with Roddick in 1999. During that time period, he intermittently trained with Venus and Serena Williams; he later moved back to Austin. His tennis idol growing up was Andre Agassi.
Roddick considered quitting competitive tennis at the age of 17, when he had a losing streak in the juniors. His coach, Tarik Benhabiles, talked him into giving tennis four more months of undivided attention. Roddick finished as the No. 6 junior in the U.S. in 1999, and as the No. 1 junior in the world in 2000. He won six world junior singles titles and seven world junior doubles titles, and won the US Open and Australian Open junior singles titles in 2000.
In March in Miami, in the first round Roddick had his first ATP level victory as he beat World No. 41 Fernando Vicente of Spain, 6–4, 6–0. In August in Washington, D.C., he beat World No. 30 Fabrice Santoro of France, 4–6, 6–3, 6–3. Roddick played the Banana Bowl in the city of São Paulo and won, beating Joachim Johansson in the final.[8] Roddick also won the Australian Junior Open, defeating Mario Ančić in the final. In 2001, Roddick defeated former French Open champion Michael Chang in five sets in the second round of the tournament, despite the fact that clay was Roddick’s worst surface. During the following Wimbledon, he further showed potential by taking a set from eventual winner Goran Ivanišević. At the age of 18, he also defeated 7-time Wimbledon champion, World No. 4, and fellow American Pete Sampras at the Miami Masters 7–6, 6–3, and World No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, 6–7, 6–4, 6–2, in August.
Roddick’s breakthrough year was 2003, in which he defeated Younes El Aynaoui in the quarterfinals of the 2003 Australian Open. Roddick and the Moroccan battled for five hours, with the fifth set (21–19 in favor of Roddick) at the time the longest fifth set in a Grand Slam tournament during the open era, at 2 hours and 23 minutes. Despite a lackluster French Open, Roddick enjoyed success in the United Kingdom by winning Queen’s Club, beating World No. 2 Andre Agassi, 6–1, 6–7, 7–6, along the way, and reaching the Wimbledon semifinals, where he lost to eventual champion Roger Federer in straight sets. He avenged that loss in August, beating then World No. 3 Federer in Montreal, 6–4, 3–6, 7–6. It is one of three times that Roddick defeated Federer in an official ATP tournament.
