Roddick Survives Adversity

PARIS — It was one of those Mondays that made Andy Roddick wonder why he had bothered getting out of bed.

It started when he kicked off the covers. That was a considerable struggle in itself, owing to the stealth virus that attacked the Boca Raton resident in the middle of the night.

Before the day was through, Roddick would be attacked by Mats Wilander and attacked by Todd Martin. Somehow he absorbed all the blows and remained standing, albeit a little unsteadily.

The record will show that Roddick advanced to the second round of the French Open in unspectacular fashion, dispatching Martin 7-6 (4), 6-4, 7-5. The reality is that Roddick needed more grit to pull off the victory than you”ll find in the clay of Roland Garros.

The chronicles of Roddick started in the dead of night. His stomach jabbed him awake around 2 a.m. It didn”t feel well at all.

Roddick had shared a pizza loaded with toppings with his girlfriend, Lauren Bedford, a few hours earlier. It was the last bit of food he”d be able to keep down until after his match.

Dawn’s arrival brought no relief. Roddick called off his hitting session and would have thrown in the towel, except he didn”t have the energy. “The thought ran through my mind that maybe I wasn”t going to be able to play,” he said.

Roddick saw a doctor, who diagnosed a 24-hour virus that is making the rounds in Paris. Then he huddled with his coach, Brad Gilbert and discussed his options.

Defaulting the match was the easiest option and also the most unappealing. Roddick had lost in the first round of the French Open each of the past two years. The thought of running that streak to three made him feel even sicker.

He had physical reasons not to play and psychological reasons to give it a try. For Roddick, you see, Roland Garros is a hurdle he’s desperate to clear, the better to pick up some momentum in his pursuit of greatness.

Gilbert told him, “Listen, you go out there and give it your best shot. If you”re not feeling your best and you can”t get through it, then you”ve lost nothing by trying.”

That did it. Gilbert’s talk was just the shot in the arm Roddick needed. Well, that and the IV Roddick received before his match.

It’s a shame, really, that Wilander, the legendary Swede who won three French Open titles, wasn”t there to bear witness to what Roddick went through to make it to the court on time.

Wilander, who captained the Swedish Davis Cup squad that lost to the United States last month in Delray Beach, was quoted Monday in one of the French dailies as saying Roddick lacks the will to be a great player.

Is that so? If it wasn”t desire that drove Roddick to play Monday, what was it?

Looking a darker shade of green than his shirt, Roddick battled Martin to a draw in the first set. When Roddick took the tiebreaker, it gave him the stomach, if you will, to get through the rest of the match.

In the eighth game of the third set, Roddick hit a ball to Martin’s backhand that Martin thought was wide. There was no call so Martin played the ball and then stopped to study the mark that it left. The mark showed the ball was indeed wide, which Martin was noting by drawing a circle in the clay with his racket when Roddick’s next shot sailed over the net and hit him.

Martin was well within his rights per the rules of clay-court tennis to stop and check the mark after returning the ball. Roddick argued the call with all the energy he could muster, which was not a lot.

“I was just questioning the ruling,” he said. “I didn”t know the rule — if you stop immediately or if you could hit one shot and circle a mark.”

The point belonged to Martin but Roddick reeled off the next three points to win the game. He didn”t give the matter another thought until after the match when a frustrated Martin shook his hand and then, in full view of the crowd, called him out for questioning his integrity.

That’s how Martin saw it, anyway, until the two of them cleared the air in the locker room. Then it was Martin’s turn to feel lousy.

“I felt like he thought that I bent the rules in order to win that point,” Martin said. “I expressed that I was disappointed about the situation and the way it was handled. For lack of a better phrase, I made a royal you-know-what out of myself. Unfortunately, there’s the possibility that that could reflect poorly on Andy, and that’s my fault.”

Roddick shrugged it off, same as he would Wilander’s words when they were relayed to him.

“That’s OK,” Roddick said. “I don’t mind. Obviously, I respect (Wilander’s) opinion. He was a great champion. But you know, we”ll wait and see.”

Wilander probably doesn”t care that Roddick roundly downplayed how sick he was. He tried everything to redirect questions about his health, including humor. The reason he was so pale, he told one Brit, is because “I’m just waiting to fit in when I get to England.”

All joking aside, he later would explain, “Once you make a decision to go out there and play, excuses go out the window.”

It’s hard not to respect somebody who thinks like that. Not as hard for some people, obviously. Why that’s so is a bigger mystery than the U.S. men’s lack of mastery on clay.