climb back up the mountain and walk into the winner’s circle again at a Grand Slam.  Connors has encouraged Roddick to improve his down-the-line backhand and approach the net more, but in the end Roddick’s results have not really improved.  Roddick ends 2007 ranked sixth in the world.  He has lost repeatedly to Roger Federer over the past several years and also dropped hard-court matches to Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and David Ferrer in 2007.  Although Roddick did reach the later rounds at the 2007 Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open, he only won two titles, i.e. Queen’s Club on grass and Washington on hard courts.  Roddick clearly wants another Grand Slam title and a win over Federer, but it seems to be a bigger struggle each year just to maintain his position in the top ten.  In the end, Roddick can’t seem to win most baseline rallies with other top players and although he wins more points at net these days, it is still not his strength.  Therefore, Roddick struggles a lot when a player can return his serve and force him to win a few points a game at the baseline.  Down-the-line backhands and net approaches are nice additions to Roddick’s arsenal, but he now needs to return to his basic game in order to challenge again for a Grand Slam title.  Roddick won the U.S. Open title because he had a dominant serve which gave him a couple free points each service game and created pressure on his opponent to hold his serve.  In baseline rallies, Roddick used his punishing forehand to set up and finish off points.  It’s a simple one-two punch, i.e. strong serve and forehand, that many other players continue to use very effectively.  Roddick seems to have lost some focus, confidence and pace on his forehand over the years.  Finding that forehand weapon will be the key to his success going forward.

Posted by TC at 10:30 AM || Comments (0)