ESPN: Roddick overpowers Stepanek to win third SAP Open

Andy Roddick arrived at the SAP Open this week not knowing where his game was because he had played so sparingly this season.He left San Jose with this third title at this event and confidence that he can get on a roll following a 6-4, 7-5 victory in the tournament final Sunday.

“You want to build on this and use it,” Roddick said. “If you get through a couple of tough matches like I did this week, it gives you an opportunity to go on a hot streak. I think maybe I got my foot in the door as far as that’s concerned and now I need to build on that.”

Roddick had played only four competitive matches since winning the Davis Cup late last season, losing in the third round of the Australian Open and winning his only match in this month’s Davis Cup tie against Austria.

He was pushed to a third-set tiebreaker in the opening round here against lucky loser Chris Guccione before starting to find his groove. Roddick is stressing this stretch of the season and has accepted a wild-card entry to play in Memphis this upcoming week in order to get more work.

“It was important for me to come here and play well because I didn’t have a good result in Australia and I hadn’t really played much tennis this year so far,” Roddick said. “This year might have been more important than other years.”

The top-seeded Roddick never faced a break point in the final as Stepanek had no answer for his booming serve. Roddick closed out each set with an ace to win his 24th career title.

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