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Great for a Day Under P-Mac

Roddick Blasts Santoro Under Temporary Coach
By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Patrick McEnroe

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA The busy P-Mac will drive Andy Roddick's US
Open ship. FROM THE US OPEN - Score one victory for the new Andy Roddick-Patrick McEnroe private partnership.

Roddick destroyed Fabrice Santoro 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round, so badly, that after almost being hit by a body serve on the second last point of the match, Santoro put his hands on hips and refused to return Roddick last serve, obviously an ace.

But don’t let that bizarre misunderstanding ruin what was a great night for Roddick, who played his best match of the summer, cracking his serves, forehands, keeping his backhand deep, passing well off both sides and taking care of points at the net.

Roddick will under McEnroe’s tutelage at this tournament and somewhat surprisingly Roddick’s brother John, who resigned his traveling coach post after Washington, showed up, but in a supportive role and not a coaching one.

“When we first got together, it was temporary,” said Roddick. “And he was kind of just helping me out and was going to help, and then all of a sudden it's two and a half years later. I think he was spent, and I was struggling, and so it was a very easy conversation, He was just like, ‘I'm kind of tapped, and it's pretty intense day to day, and I'm pretty intense day to day. It's probably not the easiest. But he's been here the whole time, and we've been hanging out, so it's not too big of a deal, and we'll always be brothers. It wasn't a long, drawn out, dramatic conversation. It was something he got to before I did. There's zero drama there.”
”
Roddick didn’t have a lot of time to try and bring in a new coach, so he turned to McEnroe, who is heading USTA Player Development and also doing commentary for CBS here. He hasn’t even thought about who is next full-time coach will be, but the man who has helped steer him in Davis Cup over the past seven years was the perfect choice in Flushing. McEnroe can push him a bit and knows most of the right levers too pull.

“Aweek before the Open, we're not going to go into complete overhaul mode and start changing stuff,” Roddick said. “ It's about making adjustments. "I think you can be doing this better than you have recently," you know. "I think you look for this against this opponent. This person has a tendency to do this. This is what you've done successfully." It's more along those lines. I don't think where it's Jimmy[Connors] where we're actually changing technique on a backhand or anything like that. I think Patrick is the absolute best, obvious short term solution for me at this event.Roddick will now face Ernests Gulbis, which is a much more dicey match. Gulbis can bring it in the service department and on the backhand side.

“It's a different type of match,” he said. “ I knew with Fabrice tonight, if you let him in, then you have a tough match. I wanted to try and bully the ball around and try and get on top of him early. I felt I did that. Gulbis serves a little bit bigger, so it's going to be a couple of points. He is a little streaky; come up with big shots in a row. You have to just kind of be ready for that moment where maybe he takes a break mentally. I was glad with the way I served tonight because I haven't been serving that well. If I can do that, I like my chances of holding, which puts pressure on the other guy. The first two rounds here I'm sure all of you when the draw came out, you said, that's definitely not easy. I got through a very small part of the tournament tonight.”

It was decent day for American men, and a good one for one Aussie, too. American Robert Kendrick (Fresno) beat Nicolas Mahut 7-6(3), 6-4, ,5-7, 7-5, Robby Ginepri (Atlanta) overcame Amer Delic 6-1 6-2 7-6(5) and Sam Warburg (Sacramento) advanced when Janko Tipsarevic retired with an injury. Aussie lefty Chris Guccione stung Jesse Levine 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(6). No. 3 Novak Djokovic overcame a left Achilles injury and bested Arnaud Clement 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, while seeds Radek Stepanek, Dmitry Tursunov, Nikolay Davydenko and Nicolas Almagro won. Carlos Moya was victorious and said that his recent thoughts of retirement have vanished. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga returned triumphantly and beat Santiago Ventura, 6-7(3) 6-4 6-2 6-3, but looked slow and rusty.

Agustin Calleri ended USTA 18s Nationals champ Austin Krajicek’s hopes 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 win. A US Boys 18s champ hasn’t won a main draw match since Justin Gimelstob took a contest in 1995. Ouch. In fact, the last US Boys 18s Boys champ to become a sizeable player was Michael Chang, who won the 18s in ’87. Maybe it’s time to stop those enthusiastic blogs out of Kalamazoo.