The immediate thing to notice about Roddick was the loss of weight and… the socks. Ankle socks and skinny. A la Mardy Fish. And so not a good look!
Aesthetics aside, a good start though, by both guys with Roddick-Lit(h)e moving about quite quickly, although his trademark big-serving was still evident.
Lopez and Roddick were pretty evenly matched with some great passing shots from both and some great mixing up of play.
The grass was still pretty slippery and Feliciano took a slip. At 5-5, Roddick had a DF stren game, his saving grace being Lopez’s lack of range.
Into a Tiebreak and Roddick took command early, Lopez again just not settling into range at all. There were some excellent passing shots from Andy and this was just running away from Lopez. First set to Roddick.
As with the first, it was going quite comfortably with serve in the second set, although at 3-3, Feliciano’s level really started to dip. He dug in to hold, but the sharpness from the first set had gone. That being said – it spread to Roddick in the next game saving break points as Lopez found the netcord again. Roddick scrambled to a hold more from Lopez’s unforced errors than anything else.
Lopez was trying to be more aggressive at tomes, and coming in a lot more, but Roddick was playing relentless tennis and now almost always hitting the target with passing shots.
Tiebreak again, and this time Lopez took control and was looking the more dominant, to go ahead 3-1. Again, though, Roddick was sending down some great passing shots and came back well to level at 3-3. The surface was still causing a few issues, with a slip at the net as Roddick was running to reach a drop shot. Some effective serving was employed by Roddick to get to within a mini-break of Lopez. Despite a challenge from Roddick, the momentum swung Lopez’s way.
All the while the stewards were totally clueless about letting people in and out. There were two groups of school kids, and one group in particular were unbelievably irritating with the kids constantly going in and out of the court, and not at Change of Ends. Worse still, the stewards actually let one of the teachers/supervisors out in the second game of the deciding set.
It really makes you appreciate the organization and discipline at the slams.
Lopez was really trying to pump himself up – he’d been a bit lackadaisical until the end of the second set and took an early break to lead 2-1. Then handed that right back to Roddick! Chances were slipping away for him – had a great chance for a backhand cross-court winner that slapped into the net and it was really slipping away from him.
More slipping for Roddick as a perfect lob from Lopez left Roddick on the floor, but he got up and was fine.
Roddick took the win.
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