Andy Roddick wins in Memphis
Andy Roddick won his 30th career ATP title at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships in Memphis, TN. He becomes only the 3rd active player to have 30 or more Tour titles, joining Rafael Nadal (43) and Roger Federer (67). It is the 11th consecutive year Roddick has won at least one title. Roddick joins Tommy Haas with 3 wins in Memphis, trailing only Jimmy Conners, who won this event 4 times.
Getting to the final wasn’t easy for the top-seeded Roddick, who faced Janko Tipsarevic, who defeated Roddick at the Australian Open, followed by a quarterfinal match against former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt. In the semifinal round, Roddick had to overcome Juan Martin Del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion.
In his 50th ATP final, Roddick had to face the rising star Milos Raonic. Raonic is the hottest player on tour, fresh off his first career title in San Jose just last week. Raonic has a record-setting serve, already setting tournament marks for most aces in a match, 38.
The first 2 sets went to a tiebreak, the first won by Roddick, the next by Raonic. As the 3rd set looked to be heading in the same direction, Roddick reached within himself to force a break point for the championship on Raonic’s serve. As a Raonic forehand took Roddick wide to the ad court, Roddick returned up the line, allowing Raonic to set up a cross-court volley. What resulted was Roddick making a diving forehand pass for the victory, sending the crowd wild. “That’s the best shot I’ve ever hit in my life, considering the circumstance,” said Roddick. “I played a pretty good point before that. Just making the return, you get disheartened when he doesn’t miss the next ball because he’s tough to get a serve back. He had a great volley there. I don’t really remember much else besides the fact that I went for the ball, I hit it, I didn’t really think much of it. Then I heard people cheering. I was like, ‘No, there’s no way that went in.’ I guess it did.”
Raonic ended the tournament with a record 129 aces, 23 more than the previous mark.
In doubles action, the new team of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor, seeded no. 1, defeated No. 4 Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer in a tiebreak. “This is my first ever partnership with a lefty so I’ve been learning a lot,” Mirnyi said. “It was a lot of fun out there and it’s great to be playing next to a living legend. It’s nice being on the board now with this new partnership.”
