17 years old Andy Roddick defeats 30 years old Bernard Tomic. This is what happened. On one side of the court there was a player that could have been at the end of his brilliant career that had the enthusiasm of a teenager. On the other side of the net there was a teenager that was playing with the energy of a grandpa.
The different attitude
The match was quite strange, nice, but strange. We still do not fully understand why a player like Roddick decided to retire while he may have another 2 or 3 years of decent tennis in his racket, but we respect his decision (off course). What was strange was the attitude showed by Tomic especially in the 3rd set when he was destroyed (what else?).
From Andy
“I had no idea what was going to happen out there,” Roddick said. “I’ve played a lot of matches and that was a different kind of nerves than I’ve had before, so that was surprising for me.”
Andy had an incredible support from the crowd “It’s a humbling experience, for sure. It’s certainly nice to feel appreciated at the end of all of it. It’s a good feeling,” Roddick said. “Kind of an outpouring of support from inside the tennis world and outside the tennis world in the last 24 hours is certainly not something that I expected to the lengths it’s come from.”
From Bernard
“You always dream as a kid to play in this arena; it’s the biggest stage in the world. To play one of the biggest players in America, I was thinking about it too much leading into the match. He was serving well, so I just couldn’t find my way to get out of that little zone.”
Tomic accused of tanking
Unfortunately Tomic was badly criticized by tennis legend John McEnroe
“Tomic is teeing it up. It looks like the tank job,” McEnroe said.“This is a shame. You don’t like to see this. I like to see Andy win but, other than that, it’s poor.A well-deserved beating.”
During the interview it was asked to Tomic what does he think about these accusation and … he didn’t take it nicely after a bitter confrontation he asked to the interviewer his name and for whom he was working. to the reply “I’ll remember about that” (see 4.50 in the video).
Next match for Roddick
Andy will play Fognini in the next match. Head to head is 1-0 for Roddick. We really hope that this is not going to be the last one. The Italian disagrees.
