Childhood & Early Life
Andy Roddick was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Blanche and Jerry Roddick. His father was a rich business man and his mother was a schoolteacher. His older brothers Lawrence and John were into tennis and their parents supported it.
When he was young, everyone in his family was convinced that he would either become an actor or a baseball player as Andy apparently had the talent and courage to pull off any career for himself. At 5, he moved to Florida with his family.
His brothers used to practice tennis in their backyard but soon Lawrence got more interested in competitive driving and Andy started playing tennis with John. In 1991, his parents took him to the U.S. Open in New York.
Continue Reading Below
Career
In 1996, Reebok signed Andy to play in its junior program and he won six world singles and seven doubles titles but he soon started to lose matches due to physiological changes and he thought of quitting tennis.
In 1999, with encouragement from his coach Tarik Benhabiles, Roddick concentrated on tennis and became the No. 6 junior in the U.S. and No. 1 in the world by the next year, winning the US Open and Australian Open Junior.
In 2000, Roddick beat Fernando Vicente of Spain and Fabrice Santoro of France. He also played the Banana Bowl in Sao Paulo and won the match by beating Joachim Johansson in the final round.
In 2001, he defeated Michael Chang, the former French Open champion, in five sets in the second round of the tournament. The next year, he defeated Goran Ivanisevic and the seven time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras.
In 2003, after a 5 hour long tensed match with the Moroccan player Younes El Aynaoui, Roddick won the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. It was the breakthrough point in his career.
In the same year, he won his first Master Series titles and his only Grand Slam title. He became the first American to finish a year at No.1 since Andre Agassi. He was also the youngest American to hold this honor.
In 2004, during the Summer Olympics, Roddick lost to Chilean player Fernando Gonzalez. The same year, he teamed up with Mardy Fish, Bob and Mike Bryan for the U.S. Davis Cup; the team lost to Spain in the finals in Seville.
In 2005, he won the SAP Open in San Jose, California and the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships. At the US Open, Roddick lost to Gilles Muller but he won the Grand Prix de tennis de Lyon by defeating Gael Monfils.
In 2006, he suffered foot injury and lost to Andy Murray in Wimbledon, which led him to drop out of the Top 10 for the first time in years. He hired a new coach Jimmy Connors but failed to win the US Open.
Continue Reading Below
In 2007, Roddick won The Legg Mason Tennis Classic and Artois Championships. He also beat the record for the consecutive tie-breaks won at the ATP World Tour. He was ranked at the 5th position by the ATP, under the coaching of Jimmy Connors.
In 2009, Roddick hired coach, Larry Stefanki but did not make it to the final in Australian Open, French Open and the ATP World Tour Masters 1000. But he did make it to the finals of Wimbledon, eventually losing to Roger Federer.
In 2010, he was struggling with his knee injury, and he lost against Federer at Wimbledon. He announced that year that he had mononucleosis and was experiencing a groin.
In 2011, Roddick reached the final at Brisbane and won the Cellular South Cup in Memphis. He also won the deciding match for America in the opening Davis Cup title against Chile.
In 2012, Roddick played his last tournament - the US Open, but he lost in the fourth round to Martin Del Potro from Argentina. This was his last match and he announced to his fans, “A lots of ups, a lots of downs, a lot of great moments’.
In 2013, after his retirement, Roddick played his first professional golf at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and he was also hired by Fox Sports to co-host their famous program ‘Fox Sports Live’.
Awards & Achievements
Roddick has made a lot of records in his tennis career like: ‘Fastest serve in Australian open’, ‘Fastest serve in Dubai’, ‘Fastest average in first serve’, ‘Fastest serve in Beijing’, ‘Fastest serve in San Jose’, ‘Fastest serve in Wimbledon’, etc.
He is the winner of the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award as he has played a very important role in raising money for the survivors of Tsunami. He auctioned many of his tennis rackets to raise money for UNICEF.
