SFGate.com: A long day, and it’s a good one for Roddick

Good stuff from Andy Roddick Thursday night. Late stuff, but good. Thanks to a series of lengthy matches throughout the day and night, the clock was a few ticks shy of midnight when Roddick polished off top American prospect Sam Querrey 6-4, 7-6 (3) at the SAP Open in San Jose.

This was the Roddick fans have experienced for years — animated, energetic, never a private emotion. After one of his shots was ruled barely wide, and a courtside fan suggested it was an obvious call, Roddick looked up and said, “All right, guy, it wasn’t that far out. Let’s calm down a little bit up there.”

On the other side of the net, Querrey was calm and impervious. He showed a ton of game, and some ingenuity, in defeat, often answering Roddick’s rockets with convincing answers of his own. In the end, it will be Roddick facing Vince Spadea in the quarterfinals, with last year’s tournament winner, Andy Murray, most likely looming in the semis.

If this tournament has taught fans anything about the men’s tennis tour, it’s about the exceptional depth of talent. After serve-and-destroy specialist Ivo Karlovic took out James Blake in a Thursday afternoon match that lasted past the scheduled evening-session start, Marat Safin got a mighty scare from a virtual unknown, Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei, before pulling out a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory.

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