MR RODDICK'S FIRST TITLE OF THE SEASON IN SAN JOSE
As soon as big-hitting American ace Andy Roddick beat Radek Stepanek in San Jose 6-4 7-5, www.skysports.com/tennis had the write-up published...
A-Rod lands first title
Fourth seed Stepanek overpowered by American's serve
Andy Roddick beat Radek Stepanek 6-4 7-5 to claim his first title of the season in San Jose.
The top seed never faced a break point, using his powerful serve to good effect as he won the event for the third time in his career.
He closed out each set with an ace and, after a low-key start to the year, he is confident he can build on this initial success.
"You want to build on this and use it," Roddick said. "If you get through a couple of tough matches like I did this week, it gives you an opportunity to go on a hot streak.
"I think maybe I got my foot in the door as far as that's concerned and now I need to build on that."
Roddick had played only four competitive matches since winning the Davis Cup late last season, losing in the third round of the Australian Open and winning his only match in this month's Davis Cup tie against Austria.
"It was important for me to come here and play well because I didn't have a good result in Australia and I hadn't really played much tennis this year so far," he said.
"This year might have been more important than other years."
Roddick claimed the decisive service breaks in either set, Stepanek losing his serve to love to open the match before the American broke crucially at 5-5 in the second set.
After winning only 13 points in Roddick's 11 service games, Stepanek explained that he never had the opportunity to find his rhythm.
"It's just the way Andy played," he said. "When I played the guys before, a lot of balls were played. With Andy, the games sometimes go too quickly. Maybe you don't touch the ball or touch it twice but the ball ends up in the fence.
"Today there was no rhythm for me. Usually I'm taking the rhythm of the players but today I didn't get the chance to get mine."
No comments:
Post a Comment