Andy Passes Tough Test From Todd Martin

The stadium was completely packed for Andy’s first round match at the Memphis Racquet Club Wednesday night. The tournament’s top seed, coming off a title run in San Jose, was looking to gain revenge on an old foe, Todd Martin. It was almost a year ago at the NASDAQ-100 Open in Miami that Martin took Andy out in straight sets.

We all know 11 months later, this is a different Andy, but Martin has the extraordinary ability to compete with the very best in the game every time he walks on the court. He’s been doing this for more than a decade already. In fact, it was ten years ago that Martin won his first ATP event at the Kroger/St. Jude. The guy Martin beat in the final? Brad Gilbert.

The first set was on serve throughout until Andy was broken at 5-5. Fortunately with a string of solid returns, Andy easily broke back to force a tie-breaker. In the breaker, Andy stormed out to a 6-1 lead with a mixture of big first serves, and more solid returns, specifically off the backhand.

While you never want to count Todd Martin out, there was a sense that with the first set in the bag, Andy would routinely win this match. This was not the case. In fact Martin nearly bageled Andy in the 2nd set. Andy saved some set points on serve at 0-5, but the set was all Martin.

Martin has the ability, with his long reach and world-class hand-eye coordination, to get a good majority of Andy’s serves back in play. On his own serve, the balls seem to come from the sky as they angle off to both sides. In addition, Martin volleys as well as anyone, and his 1-2 combinations were working very well tonight.

The third set was similar to the first. Both players had a chance to break at different times, but held to 5-5, when Andy held serve at love. At 5-6, Martin seemed to be in control as he gained a 30-15 lead, but on the last three points, he missed all his first serves, and Andy took advantage. Match point was a long rally with players running from side to side, when Martin finally hit a ball long.

Game, Set Match Roddick 7-6 1-6 7-5.

Andy plays the last match tomorrow evening against little known Sebastien De Chaunac.

Good luck, Andy!

Photo by Ron Angle/BEImages