Roddick explains why his FH went loopy post 2004-05

The Aceserver said:
But he was still able to serve rockets with that jerky service motion without issues? Strange.
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Even his fastball lost some juice - older Roddick was still serving great compared to the rest of the field but he generally wasn't capable of tossing down love holds where he was averaging 140 MPH+ anymore (plus I believe all the times he broke the 150 MPH mark were in his younger days as well).
 
After Federer's amazing 2004 (where he didn't lose to a top 10 player), I think Roddick took a gamble, by ditching Brad Gilbert as his coach and going with Dean Goldfine, to try to make himself a better all-round player (which is admirable), but it didn't really work out.

Gilbert's approach towards Roddick had been more "accentuate your positives, and hide your negatives as much as possible".
 
Mustard said:
After Federer's amazing 2004 (where he didn't lose to a top 10 player), I think Roddick took a gamble, by ditching Brad Gilbert as his coach and going with Dean Goldfine, to try to make himself a better all-round player (which is admirable), but it didn't really work out.

Gilbert's approach towards Roddick had been more "accentuate your positives, and hide your negatives as much as possible".
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Yes, this concern was clearly on the back of Roddick's mind during the last couple of sets in the Wimbledon 2004 F.

In the first set, when he was redlining on his game, playing out his/Gilbert's instinctual patterns, he was shredding.
 
I remember being very impressed watching Roddick beat Berdych at Wimbledon in the 4th round in 2009. The match was even more one sided than the scoreline suggested, as he completely toyed with Berdych, employing a lot of variety, especially with the paces and spins off his shots and his volleying, slicing well and never looking remotely troubled at all on his serve (he didn't face a single break point). That was a match in which he displayed an effective combination of showcasing his strengths from the earlier stages of his career, alongside newly improved features of his game under Stefanki.

Sections of the British media acted as if a Federer-Murray final was a foregone conclusion at that tournament, and were even 'previewing' how that 'dream' final would play out, ahead of the semi-finals. Surely a further motivating tool for Roddick there.

In terms of the split with Gilbert, I remember reading that he clashed with Roddick's father Jerry, over money (a financial contract) and scheduling. Jerry Roddick knew not to get involved with tactics and technical issues. But he had a major influence in other areas, notably when it came to finances, coaches and contracts with them, scheduling etc. Apparently Gilbert wanted Roddick to spend December 2004 training intensely instead of entering charity events and exhibitions, which was a major source of disagreement - Gilbert wasn't happy that they only worked together for something like 4 days during the 2003 off-season.

A lot of people struggled to be around Gilbert for too long, especially with his tendancy to never shut up and analyse everything to death (he did that on court during his own playing career). It was clear that Graf didn't look comfortable sitting next to him, and Gil Reyes didn't look to enjoy that either. Mac joking in the commentary booth about the fact that there were empty seats all around Gilbert during the 2001 US Open was funny.
 
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Mustard said:
I was a bit surprised that Roddick beat Murray at 2009 Wimbledon, just as I was surprised by the opposite result at 2006 Wimbledon.
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To be fair, it was two tiebreaks in sets 3 and 4 that Roddick won that made the difference in the ‘09 semi. Could have easily gone the other way.

Roddick played out of his mind though in that match and was braver when it counted.

As for the 2006 match, that loss must have taken a toll on him because if you watch their Cincinnati QF a month later, I’ve never seen Roddick so fired up. A lot of passive-aggressive behaviour from both guys out there.
 
Roddick mentioned that in the past, I believe he mentioned 2007 or 2008 in regards to that injury. But he started changing his forehand in 2005.
 
BauerAlmeida said:
Roddick mentioned that in the past, I believe he mentioned 2007 or 2008 in regards to that injury. But he started changing his forehand in 2005.
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Yes. In 2005, Roddick was clearly trying to improve his previous weaknesses, like his backhand. In so doing, he became a more well-rounded player, but his strengths were lesser strengths compared to before, so likely had a negative end result. Roddick was runner-up at Wimbledon in both 2004 and 2005, but he looked far better at 2004 Wimbledon when he was far more focused on big serve, big forehand.

Had Roddick won 2004 Wimbledon, or had Federer not dominated 2004 so much, Roddick would have probably stayed on the Gilbert course.
 
diggler said:
Injuries can affect different strokes. I had a shoulder injury which affected my serve, but not my groundstrokes.
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He's on record that his serve was affected. And as above, later Roddick was more often consistently in the mid-high 120s than in the 130s.

I'm sure he could go into more detail, but I still don't get how having to hit a "topspin" forehand kept him from attacking. I don't think anyone would describe his early forehand as "flat", and you can certainly rip a topspin forehand through the court. It doesn't have to go straight to a neutral, loopy shot just because you're hitting topspin.
 
FD3S said:
Even his fastball lost some juice - older Roddick was still serving great compared to the rest of the field but he generally wasn't capable of tossing down love holds where he was averaging 140 MPH+ anymore (plus I believe all the times he broke the 150 MPH mark were in his younger days as well).
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exactly, and he also talked about it during his top 10 days, that he lost some mph on his serve.
 
Gizo said:
I remember being very impressed watching Roddick beat Berdych at Wimbledon in the 4th round in 2009. The match was even more one sided than the scoreline suggested, as he completely toyed with Berdych, employing a lot of variety, especially with the paces and spins off his shots and his volleying, slicing well and never looking remotely troubled at all on his serve (he didn't face a single break point). That was a match in which he displayed an effective combination of showcasing his strengths from the earlier stages of his career, alongside newly improved features of his game under Stefanki.

Sections of the British media acted as if a Federer-Murray final was a foregone conclusion at that tournament, and were even 'previewing' how that 'dream' final would play out, ahead of the semi-finals. Surely a further motivating tool for Roddick there.

In terms of the split with Gilbert, I remember reading that he clashed with Roddick's father Jerry, over money (a financial contract) and scheduling. Jerry Roddick knew got to get involved with tactics and match strategies. But he had a major influence in other areas, notably when it came to finances, coaches and contracts with them, scheduling etc. Apparently Gilbert wanted Roddick to spend December 2004 training intensely instead of entering charity events and exhibitions, which was a major source of disagreement - Gilbert wasn't happy that they only worked together for something like 4 days during the 2003 off-season.

A lot of people struggled to be around Gilbert for too long, especially with his tendancy to never shut up and analyse everything to death (he did that on court during his own playing career). It was clear that Graf didn't look comfortable sitting next to him, and Gil Reyes didn't look to enjoy that either. Mac joking in the commentary booth about the fact that there were empty seats all around Gilbert during the 2001 US Open was funny.
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always sense Mac doesn't like to be around Brad either...weird vibe there...but I know many people would rather not be around Mac either
 
Gizo said:
A lot of people struggled to be around Gilbert for too long, especially with his tendancy to never shut up and analyse everything to death (he did that on court during his own playing career). It was clear that Graf didn't look comfortable sitting next to him, and Gil Reyes didn't look to enjoy that either. Mac joking in the commentary booth about the fact that there were empty seats all around Gilbert during the 2001 US Open was funny.
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I think Gilbert's tactical/strategical view of the game is excellent but he does sound like he could be very annoying/exhausting to have around regularly.
 
marc45 said:
always sense Mac doesn't like to be around Brad either...weird vibe there...but I know many people would rather not be around Mac either
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veelium said:
I think Gilbert's tactical/strategical view of the game is excellent but he does sound like he could be very annoying/exhausting to have around regularly.
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Some players like all the analysis and being fed as much detail as possible, but for others 'less is more'. Sampras made it clear that he could never have handled working with Gilbert. These quotes were pretty funny:

I pass along something that Pete Fischer, Sampras's first and most influential coach, recently told me: Gilbert, Fischer believes, has the greatest mind in tennis and he was always Fischer's first choice to coach Sampras if he couldn't do it himself.

Sampras rolls his eyes. "Brad's got a good heart, but I couldn't take all that talking, discussing every angle, every shot," he says. "Whenever we used to practice together, I'd say, 'Brad, would you just shut the [expletive] up for 30 minutes.' "

"Brad's got a lot to offer," Annacone throws in graciously.

"Yeah, too much," says Sampras.


Mike Agassi said the following about Gilbert:

Brad is a constant talker, you know. If you can sit and listen to him continuously, after a while, he repeats himself. If you can take it, he’s OK. But if you cannot take it, then it’s annoying. Myself, I had such a little problem with Brad. He used to work with Andre’s serve. He would tell Andre to serve 115 miles an hour to the T then next serve, the second serve, would be 92 miles an hour wide to the backhand. From 115 you go to 92, I would say try to between five to nine mile differences in the serves. Brad is a good talker. He always had answers. He once told me: "Everybody is two or three inches taller than Andre, that’s why they serve that big." I said: "Then here is a racquet two inches longer and it’s gonna give Andre a longer reach.". And his answer was: "Yeah, he’s gonna have a better serve, but he’s gonna lose seven and a half percent of his forehand and nine and a half percent on his backhand." And once you listen to someone and believe in him, then you believe in him. That’s the way it works.

I have told Andre and Brad Gilbert a hundred times: play one against two to improve your volley, but no, Brad Gilbert goes there and hits against Andre. I said: "Brad, if you were good enough to play against Andre, you would go on the tour and make more money." He always had answers. He hit one ball, he talks 10 minutes. He hit one ball, he talks 10 minutes. Then in two hours, Andre has only hit 30 balls.

The stuff about losing about 7.5% of his forehand 9.5% of his backhand made me laugh.
 
Gizo said:
Some players like all the analysis and being fed as much detail as possible, but for others 'less is more'. Sampras made it clear that he could never have handled working with Gilbert. These quotes were pretty funny:

I pass along something that Pete Fischer, Sampras's first and most influential coach, recently told me: Gilbert, Fischer believes, has the greatest mind in tennis and he was always Fischer's first choice to coach Sampras if he couldn't do it himself.

Sampras rolls his eyes. "Brad's got a good heart, but I couldn't take all that talking, discussing every angle, every shot," he says. "Whenever we used to practice together, I'd say, 'Brad, would you just shut the [expletive] up for 30 minutes.' "

"Brad's got a lot to offer," Annacone throws in graciously.

"Yeah, too much," says Sampras.


Mike Agassi said the following about Gilbert:

Brad is a constant talker, you know. If you can sit and listen to him continuously, after a while, he repeats himself. If you can take it, he’s OK. But if you cannot take it, then it’s annoying. Myself, I had such a little problem with Brad. He used to work with Andre’s serve. He would tell Andre to serve 115 miles an hour to the T then next serve, the second serve, would be 92 miles an hour wide to the backhand. From 115 you go to 92, I would say try to between five to nine mile differences in the serves. Brad is a good talker. He always had answers. He once told me: "Everybody is two or three inches taller than Andre, that’s why they serve that big." I said: "Then here is a racquet two inches longer and it’s gonna give Andre a longer reach.". And his answer was: "Yeah, he’s gonna have a better serve, but he’s gonna lose seven and a half percent of his forehand and nine and a half percent on his backhand." And once you listen to someone and believe in him, then you believe in him. That’s the way it works.

I have told Andre and Brad Gilbert a hundred times: play one against two to improve your volley, but no, Brad Gilbert goes there and hits against Andre. I said: "Brad, if you were good enough to play against Andre, you would go on the tour and make more money." He always had answers. He hit one ball, he talks 10 minutes. He hit one ball, he talks 10 minutes. Then in two hours, Andre has only hit 30 balls.

The stuff about losing about 7.5% of his forehand 9.5% of his backhand made me laugh.
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The bolded made me look up the Agassi/Gilbert H2H and I was surprised that it was 4-4. BG acquitted himself very, very well considering the vast talent gap. (Also surprised that Mike Agassi was apparently unaware that Gilbert indeed made a lot of money while actively playing on the tour).

Love that article too. Some of the Sampras wisecracks alone - which are both razor sharp and bone dry and make him come off as anything but dour and humorless - make it worth the read.
 
Gizo said:
Brad is a constant talker, you know.
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‘Rather than prolonging his talkathon, Gilbert should help Andre with the tie-break that is about to happen. Gilbert definitely knew how to play tiebreakers.’–John Barrett during the 1999 US Open final.

Agassi defeats Todd Martin with this result in said final: 6-4, 6–7(5–7), 6–7(2–7), 6–3, 6–2.
 
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FD3S said:
Mike Agassi was apparently unaware that Gilbert indeed made a lot of money while actively playing on the tour
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Mike Agassi was all about the money (well, and maybe status). The money ANDRE made - read: tens if not hundreds of times more than Brad did - wasn't enough. He commented as Andre's career was winding down that he wished he'd taught him golf instead in light of how much more money was in that sport (prime Tiger years then).

He was surely aware of what Gilbert had accomplished. To him, it would have been nothing.
 
He's mentioned in the past that he would've needed shoulder surgery in order to keep playing post-2012, and he didn't want to go through that when he was already burned out mentally anyway. In hindsight he probably should've had a procedure to clean up that shoulder many years earlier, but Andy was the kind of guy who refused to take time off for anything. He definitely wasn't going to voluntarily sideline himself for months for a non-mandatory operation.
 
FD3S said:
The bolded made me look up the Agassi/Gilbert H2H and I was surprised that it was 4-4. BG acquitted himself very, very well considering the vast talent gap. (Also surprised that Mike Agassi was apparently unaware that Gilbert indeed made a lot of money while actively playing on the tour).

Love that article too. Some of the Sampras wisecracks alone - which are both razor sharp and bone dry and make him come off as anything but dour and humorless - make it worth the read.
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Gilbert was also a solid 4-5 against Sampras, winning their only grass match at Queen's Club and taking their Cincinnati showdown in his epic run to the 1989 title where he beat Sampras/Chang/Becker/Edberg.
 
I can see why this would be. I have some shoulder impingement that gives me pain in front of my shoulder if I am reaching too far across the front of my body. It's way more comfortable for me to swing vertically than linearly.
 
bigbadboaz said:
Mike Agassi was all about the money (well, and maybe status). The money ANDRE made - read: tens if not hundreds of times more than Brad did - wasn't enough. He commented as Andre's career was winding down that he wished he'd taught him golf instead in light of how much more money was in that sport (prime Tiger years then).

He was surely aware of what Gilbert had accomplished. To him, it would have been nothing.
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Oh, lord. Mike Agassi in golf, what an example for Earl Woods to try and live up to.
buscemi said:
Gilbert was also a solid 4-5 against Sampras, winning their only grass match at Queen's Club and taking their Cincinnati showdown in his epic run to the 1989 title where he beat Sampras/Chang/Becker/Edberg.
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Now this I had no idea about! Beating any version of young Sampras on grass is an achievement and four wins out of nine tries is more than respectable given what the pair had in their respective arsenals.
 
bigbadboaz said:
He's on record that his serve was affected. And as above, later Roddick was more often consistently in the mid-high 120s than in the 130s.

I'm sure he could go into more detail, but I still don't get how having to hit a "topspin" forehand kept him from attacking. I don't think anyone would describe his early forehand as "flat", and you can certainly rip a topspin forehand through the court. It doesn't have to go straight to a neutral, loopy shot just because you're hitting topspin.
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Yes this is clear and shown by his 20-40kmh slower deliveries
Luckily his service was unique closer to Becker in that he hit the ball going up
rather than forward shoulder rotation like Fed or more traditional servers.
However the jolt he exerted on his shoulder was crazy considering his Forearm
strength + stiff and longer racquet he used compared to the majority of players.
Roddick never really flowed on court he was always mechanical and worrying
about his form to avoid making silly mistakes as he was his own worst enemy
which amounted to over sweating and relying mainly on his serve.
 
FD3S said:
Now this I had no idea about! Beating any version of young Sampras on grass is an achievement and four wins out of nine tries is more than respectable given what the pair had in their respective arsenals.
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One odd fact is that when Gilbert first became Agassi's coach, at 1994 Key Biscayne, Gilbert was higher ranked (number 30) than Agassi (number 31).

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Mustard said:
One odd fact is that when Gilbert first became Agassi's coach, at 1994 Key Biscayne, Gilbert was higher ranked (number 30) than Agassi (number 31).

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Official PIF ATP Rankings (Singles) showing a list of top players in men's tennis rankings on the ATP Tour, featuring Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz and more.
www.atptour.com www.atptour.com
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That's insane. Full credit to Andre for knowing exactly what he needed in a coach and full credit to BG for getting every iota out of the talent he had. Winning ugly? Maybe, but he clearly cared more about the first part than the second part.
 
In terms of the Roddick-Murray 2009 Wimbledon SF, I remember listening to preview on BBC Radio 5 live on the morning of the match. The presenters, including Jonathan Overend, said that they didn't see how Roddick could beat Murray.

But I also remember Sue Barker saying as the players walked out on to the court that Roddick had 'his game face on'. I personally thought it was a 50-50 toss-up.

In terms of Gilbert and Roddick, 2004 must have been a frustrating year for them in general. Roddick won a lot of matches and generally played excellently (he had a 80% W/L record), but ultimately lost a lot of high quality matches against in-form/in the zone opponents, whether it was Safin at the AO, giving Federer all he could handle at Wimbledon, Agassi at Cincinnati, Gonzalez at the Olympics, Johansson at the USO and Nadal (who hit over 50 winners in 4 sets on slow clay) in the Davis Cup final. Even his R2 defeat to Mutis at RG, which I watched in person, was a very entertaining match with some superb shot-making from Mutis winning the day. On the subject of Mutis, I also enjoyed his Wimbledon 2003 R2 match vs. Srichaphan (another 5 setter).

Their working relationship ended on a very sour note, with Roddick losing the last 20 points of the match in his YEC SF vs. Hewitt.
 
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In terms of Gilbert as a player, clearly he was a significantly better player than he painted himself as. It was an obvious and effective marketing ploy by him to make out that he won nearly entirely on tactical smarts and mental toughness and not on 'technical talent'. There's no way that a player can have as much success and climb as high in the rankings as he did without being very talented.

Roddick himself constantly downplays his talent and achievements through his podcast, and Wilander has regularly done that in the past as well.

I thought that Gilbert had a very good forehand, was a good volleyer and moved well. He hit with excellent accuracy and placement, and was especially strong at controlling and altering the pace of the ball. He was excellent at making opponents hit shots that they didn't want to hit and drive them crazy (like Wheaton). That also takes plenty of technical talent. For example after some painful defeats in their h2h (including their LA SF in 1989 when he had 7 match points), he realised that taking the pace off the ball and hitting low, short slices to that wing, would result in Krickstein sending weaker shots back to him. That enabled him to force Krickstein to the corner on his backhand wing, while allowing him to come to the net for an easier putaway.

His constant point by point commentary on court during his playing days, berating himself after hitting bad shots, must have annoyed a lot of his opponents - it definitely annoyed Mac ! It was notable that he had a photographic memory of the prize money distribution round by round at every tournament that he entered. Agassi did him a huge favour by withdrawing from the 1990 Grand Slam Cup, allowing him to enter as a replacement, reach the final and to his delight earn $1 million in prize money.
 
FD3S said:
The bolded made me look up the Agassi/Gilbert H2H and I was surprised that it was 4-4. BG acquitted himself very, very well considering the vast talent gap. (Also surprised that Mike Agassi was apparently unaware that Gilbert indeed made a lot of money while actively playing on the tour).

Love that article too. Some of the Sampras wisecracks alone - which are both razor sharp and bone dry and make him come off as anything but dour and humorless - make it worth the read.
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Love foul-mouthed Pete!!!
 
Gizo said:
In terms of the Roddick-Murray 2009 Wimbledon SF, I remember listening to preview on BBC Radio 5 live on the morning of the match. The presenters, including Jonathan Overend, said that they didn't see how Roddick could beat Murray.
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To be honest, I thought similarily. Roddick had only beaten Hewitt by a fraction in the quarter final, with Hewitt often banging his hip in frustration. Murray was seemingly in much better form, having won Queen's Club and playing well at Wimbledon. Roddick's win over Murray at 2009 Wimbledon was one of the best wins of Roddick's career, in my opinion.

Gizo said:
Their working relationship ended on a very sour note, with Roddick losing the last 20 points of the match in his YEC SF vs. Hewitt.
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Yes, and the USA lost the 2004 Davis Cup final to Spain.
 
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