Andy Roddick Reveals His Favorite US Open Court & Late-Night Match Survival Tips | Q&Andy

Andy Roddick (0:01)

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Andy Roddick (1:06)

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Q&Andy. I'm assuming there's a lot of US Open stuff, Mike.

Mike (1:10)

It is. US Open special. As a reminder, we want to be featured on the show. Go to servedpodcast.com and you can submit your questions there or send us an email to askandy at servedpodcast.com or dms on socials. Hit us up.

Andy Roddick (1:24)

That's right. Served Podcasts comes with an AKG. Oh, sorry.

Mike (1:28)

Oh man.

Andy Roddick (1:29)

Dolby Atmos.

Mike (1:30)

Oh man.

Andy Roddick (1:32)

Okay, go ahead.

Mike (1:33)

All right. First question is from Jean. She DMed us on Instagram and looking back at this year's tournament, she asked who surprised you the most at the US Open this year?

Andy Roddick (1:46)

Not a great answer, but Hodar. Yeah. It's pretty surprising because surprising is not like, I guess I can go either way with that. Right? I was shocked by that result.

One of the things that I guess isn't surprising, but I was really impressed with was four women enter the US open with a chance of the number one world ranking. Right? All four of them make it to the semis. I think that was underreported like I think we'd take that for granted. We talk about like clutch. You have a look at the basket at, you know, number one ranking, three of which had never had it before or two of them have never had it.

Robocona coming in on one wheel, left foot, heel not working, no practice, winning the tournament, taking the number one world ranking.

Mike (2:37)

Yeah.

Andy Roddick (2:37)

I think that qualifies. That's pretty sweet. I think that's the one that's pretty sweet.

Mike (2:40)

AC wants to dive into the match up between Shelton and Zverev. What is the one tactical or mental adjustment Shelton needs against Zverev to turn a historically difficult match up into a Grand Slam victory or just any victory? He's currently 0-6 against Zverev.

Andy Roddick (2:56)

Yeah.

I think it's kick wide on the deuce side as kind of, I think he has to use that to set up the t-serve on the deuce side. Even early in the first game of the match, he had two t-serves and Zverev was all over him. So you have to set the table to make that serve more effective so you can get gains there. It's not just a lot of armchair analysis is just go here or just go there. Tennis, there's another layer. You have to set the table to then go somewhere. You can't just go, serve goes back in.

If that's his strength, you have to offset it with a threat of something to their forehand. Zverev did an amazing job in the rallies, and we talked about it on the recap show, and Zverev talked about it at the desk, of, yeah, I was able to go soft to Ben's back end and make him try to create pace. As someone who could not create pace in his back end, I fully understand what he's saying. And that's not a tactic where it's a straight line, right? In order to do the soft stuff to the back end of one of the best tennis players in the world, you have to have the threat of going line hard, right? So Zverev has to take his forehand line hard, establish that pattern, and then that opens up the soft stuff to Ben's back end. So Ben made adjustments during that match. He was just down two sets when he did it, right? Gave himself more time.

Where his contact point in the third set was four feet further back than it was during the first two, right? So he made that adjustment. He started going to the chip a little bit more. So I think it's just more of the adjustments that he made. And his kick serve wide on the due side was not there this match. He shanked a couple of them, which is crazy for him. But I think he has to create some space, spread the court in order to come in. He cannot attack Zverev when Zverev is just playing through the middle. It's an impossible place deep and kind of handcuffed from the middle is not the place for Ben to deal from in that matchup.