A month later he claimed the Australian Open boys crown and began splitting his time between juniors and the pros. He hoped to receive a college scholarship, but it quickly became apparent his game was worthy of a bigger venue.Īt the end of 1999, Roddick won the prestigious Eddie Herr junior event in Bradenton, then followed it up with an Orange Bowl title. The younger Roddick had plotted a similar route to that of his brother. He set his cellphone to vibrate and received periodic updates on Andy's match. Sunday, John was with his team, playing at Mississippi State. Now an assistant coach at the University of Georgia, where he played collegiate tennis, John Roddick suffered back problems and never competed professionally. He'd been through the experience before.'' ``He was pretty good in juniors and I always looked up to him and thought he was the best. `` played a lot before I did,'' Andy Roddick said. The Roddick family moved to Boca Raton to be closer to John, who had moved to the Macci Tennis Academy. ``He said, `OK.' He didn't care and he won the tournament with that racket.'' ``I said, `Son, this is the one you have to play with,' '' Blanche said. It was splattered with paint and looked like it had been used as a jack. Too late to turn back, Blanche found one of John's old rackets in the trunk. En route from Austin to Houston for a 10-and-under tournament, 7-year-old Andy realized he had forgotten his racket. Afterward, Sluice told Roddick's mother, ``This kid was unbelievable.'' Andy was 6 when he took his first lesson from an Australian named Wayne Sluice. The family knew nothing about tennis until middle brother John Roddick took up the sport at age 6.Īndy's initial interest in tennis resulted from emulating his middle brother. Lawrence Roddick, the oldest of the three brothers and a San Antonio resident, was an All-American diver at the University of Nebraska. He'll stay awake through the whole match now.'' ``I'd come off the court and he'd say, `Oh, yeah, good playing.' I'd be like, `I lost 0 and 0, Dad.' He wasn't the most avid fan. ``He'd pretend to read the paper and his head would fall forward,'' Andy Roddick said. It wasn't uncommon to catch Jerry dozing behind a newspaper during matches when Andy was coursing through the junior circuit. Andy's father, Jerry Roddick, managed to stay awake through this one. His mother broke into tears afterward during a celebratory embrace with the youngest of her three sons. Roddick's parents watched from the stands. It really couldn't have been any better for a tennis match.'' ``It was real life,'' Roddick said of toppling fourth-seeded Sampras, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3, on Sunday. With a victory over 21st-seeded Andrei Pavel of Romania, Roddick will reach the quarterfinals. With the exception of the Grand Slams, he couldn't have selected a more prominent stage for the latest in a lengthy string of breakthroughs. Sampras was just a year younger when he achieved the same feat, beating American Tim Mayotte in 1988 at Detroit.Įleven months since making his pro debut at the Citrix Championships in Delray Beach, Roddick is in the fourth round of a Tennis Masters Series event. A Boca Raton resident the past eight years, Roddick furthered his ascent up the Association of Tennis Professionals Tour rankings with his first career victory over a top-10 player. Roddick's animate opponents have found it just as difficult to beat him. He would say, `Boris didn't have a good day today.' '' It was interesting because he always won. ``He played all the top players every day of his life in his mind. ``He played imaginary matches from the time he was 4 1/2 to the time he was 10 years old,'' mother Blanche Roddick recalled. These epic encounters took place in the Roddick family's garage in Austin, where Andy would hit against a rebound net. Long before Boca Raton's Andy Roddick, 18, stunned 13-time Grand Slam winner Pete Sampras at the Ericsson Open on Key Biscayne, Roddick was dueling the tennis legends. Picture: Andy's parents, Jerry and Blanche Roddick, stand with a picture of Andy at age 10, along with some of his trohpies. Tennis phenom, 18, imagines the impossible, makes it real
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