Roddick can't beat the rain

By Art Spander

NEW YORK -- What a great headline: "ROBINSON CANNOT." It was in the Post, an allusion to the Yankees' Robinson Cano, who didn't dive for a ground ball out of his reach. That was Monday. On Tuesday, it was A-Rod who could not, the other A-Rod now in this town, Andy Roddick.

Somehow, some way, it always rains here around Labor Day, during the U.S. Open tennis championships. One year it's a storm from off the coast. Another year it's the remnants of a hurricane. If you can slog it here, you can slog it anywhere.

Unless you're playing tennis, outdoors, which is what Roddick and Juan Martin del Potro did for a while, as Roddick, in his farewell, battled into the second week and the fourth round. ESPN was all over the match,  Chris Fowler, John McEnroe, the Bay Area's Brad Gilbert.

Would it be the last hurrah for the 30-year-old Roddick, Open champion in 2003, who stunningly announced on his birthday, last Thursday, that when he's out of this tournament he's out of competitive tennis? Or would Roddick continue the 130-mph serves and the drama going into the fifth round?

Neither, it turned out. An hour into the Tuesday night match, which started late, play was suspended by rain, with the match at 6-6 in the first set and Roddick ahead, 1-0, in the tiebreak.

The plan was to restart Wednesday, but thunderstorms are forecast. In the previous four years, the Open has finished on a Monday, a probability this time. When Roddick will finish is anybody's guess. He's not supposed to get past Del Potro, the No. 7 seed – Roddick, once the world's No. 1, is seeded No. 20. And should Andy defy logic, almost surely the great Novak Djokovic would be his next opponent.

But Roddick is enjoying these moments. He knows the end is near, and he is at peace with the player and the person he has become.

In this town, he's the other A-Rod, along with the Yanks' Alex Rodriguez, and that puts him in an esteemed class. The Post, the Daily News and Newsday are tabloids, the few, the proud, with sports headlines on the back page no less powerful or meaningful than those news headlines on the front page.

There’s an intensity fueled by those headlines. Every day, all 365 of them, there has to be a subject to get the fans excited, even when in truth there's nothing. The Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow issue is the stuff of dreams for the tabs. The other day in the Post, Sanchez was on the back cover and, because he apparently is dating Eva Longoria, additionally on the front. Hey, it was a holiday weekend and killings and political corruption just weren't that important.

Rodriguez, coming back to the Yankees after rehab – he had not played with New York since breaking his hand on July 24 – took the Post back cover. "IT'S UP TO A-ROD," according to the headline.

In a way, at the U.S. Open across the East River, that was also the situation. If it were not for Roddick and the awesome Serena Williams, who Monday beat the Czech brewer's daughter, Andrea Hlavackova, 6-0, 6-0 – the double-bagel as it's known – American tennis would be absent from the American Open.

Roddick, certainly, is as much a curiosity as a personality. How long can he last? Even Kim Clijsters of Belgium, who previous to Andy announced this would be her last competitive event, was in a prime seat at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where early most of the seats in the 23,000-capacity arena – prime or not – were empty.

The weather had been bad throughout the day. Maria Sharapova and Marion Bartoli only made it through four games (all of them won by Bartoli) before that match was postponed. So spectators properly were hesitant to show up, arriving late as they do for dinner in Manhattan.

The crowd was decidedly pro-Roddick, understandably when he was a homeboy against the Argentine Del Potro, and when Andy broke serve in the sixth game to lead 4-2, the biased cheers were apparent.

So was the oppressive weather, 77 degrees with 86 percent humidity, a dampness that had Del Potro – the 2009 champion – grumbling to the umpire, contending the court was slippery and then grabbing a towel to wipe the lines for emphasis.

Del Potro broke back, and so they were in a tiebreaker, but not for long as the rain returned. One point, to Roddick, and that was it.

Top-seed Roger Federer, who on Monday reached his 34th consecutive quarterfinal in a Grand Slam tournament, said of Roddick: "I’m thankful for everything he's done for the game, especially here for tennis in America.

"It's not been easy after Agassi and Sampras, Courier, Chang, Connors, McEnroe, you name it."

It hasn't been easy, but what is easy in New York, a town where Cano cannot but both A-Rods still are trying to show they can.

No End to Andy Roddick’s September Song

By Art Spander

NEW YORK -- Andy Roddick’s September song remains a melody without end. The days grow short, but at the 2012 U.S. Open, his last tennis tournament of a huge career, autumn remains somewhere beyond the backcourt line.

Roddick held off his announced retirement one more match on a humid Sunday at Flushing Meadow, playing to a crowd he said was as loud as he could remember and also playing to his own sense of purpose.

After his three-hour, 7-5, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4, third-round victory over Italy’s Fabio Fognini, Roddick appeared almost as surprised as he was satisfied.

"I don’t have a lot of questions of how, why or when," Roddick told the packed house of more than 21,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. "I’m just trying to play point to point, keep my emotions together and appreciate this tournament."

The appreciation comes from the fans.

For a decade, Roddick, who turned 30 on Thursday, has been the male face of American tennis, outspoken, occasionally outrageous and always in touch.

After Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, there was Roddick, with the Open title in 2003, and appearances in four other finals, one at the Open, three at Wimbledon. There was Roddick in commercials. There was Roddick on the Davis Cup team.

So, when, stunningly, Roddick, beset by injuries, called a press conference on his birthday to say this tournament would be his last competition, the news was emotional, maybe as much for those who follow American tennis as much as it was for Roddick.

Each match could be his final match. In classic Roddick style, he’s keeping us in suspense by keeping himself in the Open. Maybe not much longer. His next opponent, Tuesday night, is Juan Martin del Potro, the number 7 seed and the 2009 champion. Still, sport has a way of defying logic.

"I’m normally good about putting my thoughts (forward), able to articulate," he said. "But this whole process, I’m trying not to overthink it, trying I guess to be as simplistic as possible. I’m trying to enjoy the process and, when I get out there, trying to compete also.’’

He’s competed. He’s succeeded.

Tennis and golf are different. There are no hometown teams. There are home-country heroes. Maybe Roger Federer belongs as much to the world as he does to Switzerland, but Americans -- “U-S-A, U-S-A’’ -- are partial toward Americans.

Since the early part of the 21^st century, Roddick has been their man. Our man.

Now, as Roddick pointed out, as it is his time to say goodbye to the venues and the pals, it’s the U.S. Open spectators’ time to say goodbye to Roddick. And they’re doing it in with clamorous joy.

"I’ve been surprised by the support," Roddick conceded. "I thought inside our world it would be something, but I don’t know that I expected all this and the crowd to react the way it has. It’s been a special experience for me. It’s been a lot of fun."

The first set, when the upper reaches of the stadium were mostly empty, Roddick was in front 5 games to 3. Then, as so often happens in tennis, a reversal and it was 5-5. The fans, almost out of desperation, shouted and screamed. Roddick responded.

The 25-year-old Fognini, who hugged Roddick at the net when the match ended, eventually would come to the locker room and ask for a signed Roddick tennis shirt, the LaCoste brand with the little crocodile on the front.

"Like one of the jerseys," said Roddick, "it’s customary to exchange in football (soccer matches)."

Fognini appeared to be overtaking Roddick after winning the third set, but Andy regained control.

"He has no pressure now," Fognini said of Roddick’s play. "He was really aggressive. He has nothing to lose."

Not quite true. He has a career to lose. He has fans to lose.

Following the on-court interview, Roddick was hauled up to the CBS-TV outdoor booth overlooking the plaza, the gathering point for the all-day party that is U.S. Open tennis. After removing his headset, Roddick was assaulted with booming cheers.

There will be more. For the ninth time, he is in the Open’s round of 16. For someone who failed to get past the third round this year at the Australian, French and Wimbledon, that is a great way to pull the curtain down.

"I love this place," he told the fans, blowing kisses and waving. "I love all of you."

Later, to the press, Roddick said, "I’ve been walking around with a smile on my face for three days. All of a sudden you’re kind of smiling, humming, whistling, walking around, and you feel pretty good about it."

Roddick came to this Open as a spectator in 1991. He will leave as a legend in 2012.

"I’d be an idiot not to use the crowd right now," he said about the biased cheers. "It’s a huge advantage. Each match is almost like it’s another memory."

When each match may be your final match, what else would it be?