GO FOR 2

Ok Andy Roddick, I’m impressed, and I owe you an apology.

Roddick outlasted Lleyton Hewitt yesterday to move into the Wimbledon semi-finals (some of you may remember me saying an American had no chance at making the quarters, touche’). Roddick has been very impressive so far at Wimbledon. He has showed guts, calm, and staying power in going 5 sets against Hewitt. He also showed dominance in hammering 20th seeded Tomas Berdych in straight sets in the fourth round.

This Andy Roddick seems to have all of the upside, but also seems to have fixed a lot of the problems. Roddick has a cannon of a serve, everyone has always known that, but he’s never been a great volley guy and he’s always underwhelmed in tie-breaks. Roddick hasn’t really impressed with his improved volley ability, but it is better, and he hit a few fantastic drop shots against Melzer and a beautiful backhand winner against Berdych. Roddick is still firing off the serves – he clocked one in at 138 against Hewitt, and recorded a tournament-best 43 aces – but the big story is his tie-break performance.

Roddick’s ability to serve well keeps him from getting broken often, but his questionable return and volley skills prevent him from breaking opponents. This means you’re going to play a lot of tie-breaks, in fact Roddick has been in 6 this tournament alone. Where Roddick has previously stuggled to get 50 percent of his tie breaks, he is 5-1 now going into the semis. In fact, until Hewitt won the second set in a tie-break (10-12) Roddick had won 13 straight. Then, Roddick showed some real focus and came back to win the third set by tie-break (7-1).

Andy Roddick is into the Wimbledon Semifinals because he has kept his best strength, and improved all his weaknesses at least a little, and some a lot. Roddick has proven a lot of his critics wrong (your’s truly), and is playing with renewed confidence. Whether Roddick is able to deafeat Andy Murray and move into the finals or not doesn’t matter, as long as Roddick takes his high level of play and his confidence out of this tournament, then he can consider this Wimbledon a huge victory.