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BNP PARIBAS OPENMarch 12, 2012Andy RoddickINDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA T. BERDYCH/A. Roddick THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. You feel like you made some progress this week or little disappointing you couldn't pull that through? ANDY RODDICK: Both. I thought he played really well in the third set. Actually hit the ball better than I had. In the third he was too good for me tonight. Q. What do you think: You're coming off the chair after the second and you squeaked it out? ANDY RODDICK: Well, you got a shot. You know, played a good game, and I was hoping that I could kind of keep the momentum on my side. Um, you know, gave it a whirl. Q. You have been talking about getting matches. You got a few here. Probably not as many as you want. ANDY RODDICK: Was that... Q. It's a question. ANDY RODDICK: I didn't know if that was a question. It sounded like a statement. I agree. I agree. Q. Getting into the third set maybe if you had a few more matches this year you... ANDY RODDICK: I don't know. He played well. He played better than I did in the third set. He just played better than I did. Q. How do you describe his ball compared to other guys, the way he hits it? ANDY RODDICK: Well, I mean, he can hit through pretty well. He's strong. You don't really get the upper hand too often if he makes good contact with it. Yeah, I mean, he hits a pretty heavy ball. Q. What are you going to do before Miami? ANDY RODDICK: I have been off the court for 15 minutes. I haven't talked to anybody. But, you know, my home is on the way, and there is a lot of time between now and then. So my home will probably be in the cards for a couple of days minimum. Q. How do you feel physically? You have been struggling with injuries for quite some time. How do you feel you are getting back to your normal shape? ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, you know, it's‑‑ it is what it is. I decided to play. He played better than I did. Q. Overall do you feel like the ankle is responding a little bit better day by day? ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. I'm not going to address too much. You know, I said, you know, three or four weeks ago I was going to try not to address it on a daily basis. If you play, you're fine. I played, I competed, and he beat me. Q. Do you have any thoughts on Federer and Raonic tomorrow night? ANDY RODDICK: Like what kind of thoughts? Q. How it might go, who's favored? ANDY RODDICK: Well, Roger is favored. I think it's a little‑‑ I think being at night probably favors Roger. It plays a little heavier. You know, Raonic's ball would be jumping all over the place during a hot day. Roger knows how to get the serves back in play, so it will be a tough matchup. But when you have a weapon as big as Raonic's serve, if he can get first serves in he can certainly make it interesting. But I'm not sure how you can make Milos a favorite. Q. Can you take a moment and talk big picture? I think you said something like the sensible person in you has to put things in perspective, but the fighter in you wants to go out and break things. Just talk to us about what's in your head about the near future and the coming stretch. ANDY RODDICK: I don't understand the question, really. Q. Well, big picture in your career. You said a while ago there are two aspects, the sensible aspect... ANDY RODDICK: Well, what are you... You mean just like a gross, vague... Q. No. I'd like you to reflect on that and what's going on in your head about that, about the big picture situation. ANDY RODDICK: Well, for me, I mean, there is really no big picture. I'm not 19. I want to get better and I want to be better right now. I want to play better. I'm not looking at it with some grandiose vision. I have always kind of looked at tomorrow throughout my entire career, and that's not any different right now. That's kind of the mindset I have always had. Q. I know that you and Mardy are obviously very close and you both are not having the 2012s you'd like. Can you talk about similarities or common struggles at this point? ANDY RODDICK: We talk more about fantasy baseball and what our wives bought. But, you know, we don't really‑‑ you know, I don't think our friendship is based on, you know, his loss today and my loss tonight and, you know, having sullen breakfast tomorrow. I think our friendship was around before this whole deal, you know. We'll probably talk about it a little bit, but, you know, it's not likewe ‑‑ I think you used the term commiserate. That's a pretty extreme word. Q. Should Isner be expected to get to the semifinals here given Murray is out of that quarter? ANDY RODDICK: I haven't looked at the draw. Q. He has Ebden in the next round, and Harrison is left in there. ANDY RODDICK: I have no idea. Q. I think he's essentially the highest seeded, guys, right? Yeah. ANDY RODDICK: Well, he'd probably think so. You know, if that is the case, I don't want to disrespect anybody still in the draw because I haven't looked at it at all. If he is the highest ranked guy, it probably is time in his career where he wins those matches when an opportunity presents itself. And he has done a pretty good job of that over the last, you know, six, eight months now. So, yeah, I probably think he'd like to think so, yeah. Q. I know you talked before about how much you sort of enjoyed the innocence of being out on Court 13 of the Open and being able to fight through things on the outer courts. Playing both matches on stadium here, would you like to play more on smaller venues? ANDY RODDICK: I don't mind. I understand it. I can't take all the benefits from the last 10 years and what it's given me for being out there and then shy away from it when things aren't going perfectly. It's always fun to play on the smaller courts just because I guess I equate it to a guy going back and playing ‑‑ you know, if he's gone on a world tour and he comes back and plays some bar or pub somewhere, it's probably fun for him. I did enjoy that experience. But, you know, I know how it always works, and I don't think it's fair of me to take all the good things that come along with being that guy and then complaining about it when I'm not playing like that guy. Q. How would you compare the current generation, which is dominated to a significant degree by four players, with the previous generation of Pete and Andre and... ANDY RODDICK: I think the way the four guys are playing right now is the best the game has been played so far. You know, and it's always‑‑ I always think it's a little ridiculous‑‑ I know everyone wants to compare generations and it's fun, and then you get something you can argue about with your father. But it's an impossibility. Luxilon didn't exist then. You didn't have this ‑‑ it just doesn't make sense. The big serve ‑‑ when I was growing up, I always used to look in the back, and the top serve world record was 128. That was in '92. It's impossible to compare. Everyone hits that now. But apples to apples, it's not a fair comparison. I think can you compare how great those guys were in their generation, and these four are playing consistently better. There is a more significant gap I think than maybe Andre and Pete's generation over an extended period of time. Q. Whose generation is Roger really in? He's in yours and Lleyton's and those guys... ANDY RODDICK: Why do we have to define? Q. Well, I mean, sort of when you're doing generations ‑‑ I mean, do you think of yourself ‑‑ ANDY RODDICK: What generation is Andre in? Q. I know. He crosses over, too, right? ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, well anybody who plays long enough is going to play a lot of people. Q. When you compare Roger to the other three guys‑‑ ANDY RODDICK: I think at the end of it, 20 years from now when you say ‑‑ the question was asked with Pete and Andre. I think, you know, when you talk about Roger, the name that will go with it is Rafa. You know, Novak came on maybe midway into the rivalry. They had already kind of started it by three or four years. He's right in the thick of it. It's no disrespect to them. It's just a matter of what goes. You know, McEnroe‑Connors kinda goes. The names that go together, I think that will probably Rafa‑Roger looking back on it. Not to say that Novak is not going to getin the ‑‑ or he already is in the mix big time. But historically speaking, you know, when tennis was looking for that rivalry, those guys created it. Q. From a big perspective, when you look at years of tennis, do you think you can even say that there were basically three major groupings? One with Borg, McEnroe, Connors, maybe Vitas, and then sort of a period of Becker, Edberg and Sampras, the American four, and then now with Federer and Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, thosethree ‑‑ Q. That's five. ANDY RODDICK: That was a lot ofnames. Math‑‑ I don't really know what ‑‑ you're saying there's three groupings since when? Q. Pretty much since the Open era... ANDY RODDICK: Well, you're cutting '68 to '82 there, I think. Q. I'm sorry, since McEnroe‑Borg. ANDY RODDICK: So he came in, what, '77 or '78 at Wimbledon? Listen, I don't know. I'm not gonna define ‑‑ I'm not gonna say everyone else sucks except for this clump of three people and these players. I don't deal in‑‑ in ‑‑ in ‑‑ I don't know that there is a clear line in the sand as much as we'd like to make it one. I don't know. As Matt said, a lot of times it crosses over and everyone plays‑‑ I mean, Rafa played Andre a couple times, and you never think of them together. And, crap, I mean, I played Todd Martin seven times before he was done, and you don't think of us in the same generation. So, again, that's why I don't like comparing generation. It's like a Swiss cheese argument. You're always gonna find holes, and you can pretty much argue in and out of whatever hole you wanted to. If you force me to take a side in any argument, I feel like I could win it for a generation if you wanted me to. Q. Did you fill out a bracket? ANDY RODDICK: I haven't. I'm going to go fill out an anger bracket now. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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