More people want to ask Andy Roddick about a Grand Slam final he lost more than the one he won.
Yes, that 16-14 defeat in the fifth set against Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009 seems to spark more conversations than Roddick’s straight-set victory at the 2003 U.S. Open, the last time any American man won a major championship.
“For better or worse, it’s going to be the ’09 Wimbledon final. It’s the match people want to talk about. I’ll be in a coffee shop and people want to talk about it. People will tell me where they were and where they were watching it,” Roddick said in a telephone interview Friday, the day before he is inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island.
“It’s a proud moment for me. To go on the biggest stage and – I know I didn’t come up on the right end of it, but I don’t know that I could have played or executed a game plan better than I did for 4½ hours,” he said. “It’s definitely the one I hear about the most and talk about the most and kind of think about the most.”
On Saturday, Roddick and another former No. 1 player, four-time major champion Kim Clijsters, will headline the Hall’s Class of 2017. Also being enshrined this year: Monique Kalkman-van den Bosch, a four-time Paralympic medalist in wheelchair tennis; journalist and historian Steve Flink; and tennis instructor Vic Braden.