{"id":143179,"date":"2025-09-14T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T11:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/143179\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T11:17:09","slug":"andy-roddick-slams-critics-of-american-mens-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/143179\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Roddick slams critics of American men’s tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former world number one Andy Roddick<\/a> has hit back at
\ncriticis of American men\u2019s tennis. There has been a lot of debate about why American
\nmen\u2019s tennis has not been able to replicate the kind of success country\u2019s women\u2019s
\ntennis had over the last decade or so.In 2025, all four Grand Slam finals featured American players, and on two occasions, they went on to lift the title. At the Australian Open,
\nMadison Keys lifted the title after beating world number one Aryna Sabalenka in
\nthe final. A few months later, Coco Gauff<\/a> lifted the French Open after beating
\nSabalenka in the final.At Wimbledon and the US Open<\/a>, Amanda Anisimova reached
\nthe final but ended up losing it to Poland\u2019s Iga Swiatek and Sabalenka. On the other hand, only once in the last 16 years has an American men\u2019s player managed to reach the final of the Grand Slam. That was Taylor Fritz<\/a> in 2024, where he finished as the runner-up after losing to then world number one Italy\u2019s Jannik Sinner in the final in straight sets.<\/p>\n

The last American player before Fritz to reach the final
\nof a Grand Slam was Roddick himself in 2009, when he suffered a heartbreaking defeat
\nto Switzerland\u2019s Roger Federer in a five-set thriller with a score of 5\u20137,
\n7\u20136(8\u20136), 7\u20136(7\u20135), 3\u20136, 16\u201314. Roddick was also the last player to win a Grand
\nSlam from America. He did that in 2003 when he lifted the US Open after beating
\nSpain\u2019s Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final in straight sets with a score of 6\u20133,
\n7\u20136(7\u20132), 6\u20133.<\/p>\n

There is a clear progress made by American men’s tennis, says RoddickRoddick, while speaking in his own podcast, Served with
\nAndy Roddick<\/a>, discussed in detail the criticism received by American men\u2019s
\nplayers for their lack of success at the highest level in big tournaments.
\nRoddick was of the opinion that the recent criticism is not justified, as American
\nmen\u2019s tennis has improved significantly in the recent past. Roddick stated that not so long ago, there was a time when the country\u2019s number one was
\nnot even among the top-20 players in the world. However, according to him, the time has changed, and two American players are now featuring in the top six spots in the ATP Rankings. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not 22 years [since American players have had
\nsuccess in Grand Slams],\u201d said Roddick. \u201cIt’s a lot less. Like, I’m a big part
\nof that. Like I failed too [in the final of Wimbledon in 2009], you know, and
\nalso just this narrative of like, now we’ve gotten to this thing where it’s
\nlike a pass fail and it’s like, okay, if you don’t beat Sinner and Alcaraz,
\nthen it’s just the same. It’s not the same. It’s not the same as, as 10 years
\nago when the number one seed, the highest rank American was like 25 in the
\nworld and there were seven in the main draw. We have to like have a, like we
\nhave to be able to think in a sober way about progress. Like if we can’t
\ncelebrate progress, then, then we’re just lazy. There’s 23 men in the U S open
\nthis year, highest number in a long time. We have four current American players
\nthat made, that have made the semis of a grand slam. Tommy Paul’s made it.
\nFrancis has done it twice. Ben’s done it twice. Uh, and some quarters on top of
\nthat, Taylor Fritz is now a finalist, a regular quarter finalist, a
\nsemi-finalist at Wimbledon. This isn’t the same conversation that it was 10
\nyears ago. It’s just not. And I understand that they have to deal with this
\nhangover that they had. They had no drinks and still have a hangover. I don’t
\nlike it. It’s not fair. And I understand we have to talk about it. It’s so
\nboring at this point to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued by saying: \u201cI mean, it’s phenomenal. 23
\npeople. There’s a hundred, there’s a, there’s 128 people in term at 23 were
\nAmerican. That’s a massive number on the men’s side progress. They’re going to
\nmake the comparison. Don’t do it to one afternoon, one Sunday afternoon in
\n2003. Do it to eight years ago. Do it to 10 years ago. Let’s actually track
\nprogress, right? We’re not going to go back to Mac and Connors and Agassi and
\nSampras and Chang and courier and like my golden childhood of fandom, right?
\nBut like, let’s, let’s, let’s have a sober view of what progress looks like.
\nProgress looks like Ben Shelton<\/a> before he hurt his shoulder, winning a master’s
\n1000 progress is Taylor Fritz fighting and taking it on the chain, not hiding
\nfrom this, this narrative and this hangover Tommy, when he’s healthy, Francis
\nlighting up New York. I mean, let’s just, I’m sorry, it just, we need to kind
\nof have a sober view. I just get how I get mad for these players and how good
\nthey are and how flippant this thing gets thrown out, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world number one Andy Roddick has hit back at criticis of American men\u2019s tennis. There has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-143179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}