Roddick Passes On Las Vegas Tournament

Las Vegas Review-Journal: By Steve Carp

The Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas lost its top seed and probably its biggest draw Friday when former U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick pulled out of the inaugural event, which begins Monday.

Roddick, who lost in Friday’s quarterfinals of the RMK Championships at Memphis, Tenn., told Tennis Channel tournament director Steve Bellamy he was too fatigued to play in Las Vegas and wanted to rest for ATP Tour events at Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami next month.

“Andy felt bad about it, but he didn’t think he had the energy to go the distance here,” Bellamy said.

With the exit of Roddick, the world’s fourth-ranked player and winner of the U.S. Open in 2003, the No. 1 seed goes to 10th-ranked Australian Lleyton Hewitt, who reached the finals of the SAP Open in San Jose, Calif., last week before losing to Andy Murray in three sets.

Nicolas Kiefer of Germany moved up to the second seed. Rounding out the eight seeds in the 32-man field are Tommy Robredo of Spain at No. 3, Robby Ginepri of Kennesaw, Ga., at No. 4, James Blake of Tampa, Fla., at No. 5, France’s Gael Monfils at No. 6, Tommy Haas of Germany at No. 7 and Spain’s Fernando Verdasco at No. 8.

Bellamy said he thinks the deep field will be able to absorb the loss of one of the tournament’s marquee draws.

“We have 16 players who are the No. 1 player in their country,” Bellamy said. “The cutoff to get into (the tournament) was No. 68 (in the ATP rankings). No tournament outside of a Grand Slam has that kind of quality and depth.”

Bellamy said advance ticket sales remain brisk and the weekend is virtually sold out.

“Would we love to have had (Roddick)? Absolutely,” Bellamy said. “But there’s going to be a lot of great tennis played by some amazing athletes.”