American Andy Roddick suffered a third-round loss Wednesday at the $550,000 ATP Tour’s Winston-Salem Open, losing in straight sets to Belgium’s Steve Darcis. Darcis, who made it to the third round of the London Olympics, outlasted fifth-seeded Roddick in a pair of tiebreak sets, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/3) at the Wake Forest University facility.
The 28-year-old Darcis, who is ranked 81st in the world, was the last player to make the cut for the main draw. “I didn’t expect this when I came here; I wasn’t playing well,” said Darcis. “I’ve played two good first matches and now I have played well, serving well and trying to be aggressive when I could. Of course, it is a good win before the US Open.” He next faces second-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, who advanced with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen. The hardcourt tournament serves as a warm-up event for next week’s US Open.
Roddick, a former world No. 1 and ex-US Open champion, is struggling heading into the last Grand Slam of the year at Flushing Meadows. “I served okay, but I didn’t return too well,” said Roddick. “I didn’t hit the ball clean and he played better when he had to. I wanted to play better here.”
He lost early at last week’s Cincinnati Masters tournament, where he complained of back problems. He has now dropped three of his last four matches after winning five straight, including a title in Atlanta. Fourth-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine moved into the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Argentina’s David Nalbandian. Seventh-seeded American Sam Querrey continued his run of good form with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Spaniard Feliciano Lopez. Querrey will meet Dolgopolov in the quarter-finals on Thursday.
US stars seek Grand Slam answers: American tennis, once the envy of the world, is now propped up by Serena and Venus Williams on the women’s side and mired in the longest US Grand Slam men’s singles title drought. As the US Open returns to the Flushing Meadows hardcourts for the US Open fortnight that starts on Monday, it has been nine years since Andy Roddick won the US Open at age 21, taking the baton from Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. But since then, Swiss legend Roger Federer has become a 17-time Grand Slam winner, Spain’s Rafael Nadal has won 11 Slam crowns and Serbian Novak Djokovic has captured five, including four of the past seven and the 2011 US Open.
“It’s going to take some great tennis to crack those top three,” Roddick said. “They are three of the best we’ve seen ever and they are certainly playing to it right now.” Since Russian Marat Safin won the 2005 Australian Open, the only men’s Slam singles title not won by the game’s three current superstars was by Juan Martin de Potro of Argentina in a five-set upset of Federer in the 2009 US Open final.
