By richard osborn

For a guy who’s always prided himself on his knock-down-drag-out/last-man-standing inner drive, the post-Wimbledon incarnation of Andy Roddick sure sounded a whole lot like a man who had resigned himself to his place on the outer fringes of the top 10.

Moments after his deflating 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(4) second-round loss to the solid but unspectacular Serb Janko Tipsarevic, a match in which he often looked out of place on a court where he’s traditionally played some of his best tennis, the 25-year-old offered a telling analogy to his brother/coach John and longtime trainer Doug Spreen, a parallel that would surely make geriatric rockers Mick and Keith blush.

“You know,” Roddick reflected in his SW19 confessional, “when you’ve seen the Rolling Stones from the front row, and then all of a sudden you’re, like, seven or eight rows back and there’s a really tall guy in front of you waving his hands and screaming, you can’t see much, it’s not going to be as good as the other show.”

That tall guy obstructing Andy’s view and making all the ruckus? The collective triptych of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, of course, a Cerberean conglomerate against whom he’s an underwhelming 5-19.

Defeatist? Maybe that’s too strong a word. But there was undeniably a hint of resignation, of surrender, in Roddick’s voice. Five years removed from his one and only Slam title, Andrew Stephen Roddick may not be ready to raise the white flag just yet, but he’s clearly struggling in his quest to raise his game.

“I could probably coast and not train and be a top-10 player and kind of have a cushy lifestyle and be set for as long as I need to be set for,” said the recently engaged Texan, who appears to have found his soulmate in SI swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker. “But I don’t know if that appeals to me. I don’t know if I’m satisfied with that.”

Come Flushing, it will be two years since the No. 9-ranked Roddick last reached a Slam final — the ‘06 U.S. Open title tilt, which saw him come up short against Federer, the same man who’s beaten Andy in three of his four career Slam final appearances. His Davis Cup heroics are not to be overlooked, but he’s only banked two titles in each of the last two years and hasn’t won a Master Series event since Cincinnati in ‘06. Plus, his body isn’t holding up like it used to. A sore shoulder kept him from playing Roland Garros, and, most recently, a stiff neck sidelined him in Cincy.

While the former No. 1 remains a feared opponent to many, to some he’s been reduced to the role of baseborn baseliner — a nails-tough competitor with a still-monstrous serve but an increasingly ordinary ground game. The thinking is, once they can chip his serve back into play, it’s game-on. Truth is, guys like Tipsarevic, Philipp Kohlschreiber, David Ferrer and Marin Cilic have found a way to stand in and go toe-to-toe with him from the forehand side, biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to punch a hole in his backhand, to catch him in No Man’s Land as he makes yet another ill-timed dash toward the net, to expose some small kink in his chain of court command.

But before you begin to question if there’s any fight left in this Street Fighting Man, remember, Andy’s long been blessed with one of the sport’s fiercest work ethics. Clocking the on-court/off-court training hours has never been an issue. He’s always eager to put in the work. Question is, is he working smart?

“It’s easy to be critical when a player is struggling, but I think his game has become a little bit patterned,” said former touring pro Leif Shiras, now a TV analyst. “When he was an up-and-coming player, he was more of a slasher. He took more chances on the forehand. He was more of a go-for-broke type of player, although he was always steady. He’s lost some of that. He tends to fall back into a defensive posture too easily. Now you’ve got guys like Cilic who hit through the court and don’t allow Andy to get off the defensive.”

No doubt — his third-round loss to Kohlschreiber at the Aussie Open was a setback, a more-than-sour note on which to start the year. But just days leading up to and following his split with coach Jimmy Connors, A-Rod seemed to have shelved that loss when he reeled off back-to-back titles in San Jose and Dubai, where he scored confidence-boosting wins over both Nadal and Djokovic. Then, in March, after stumbling in Indian Wells, he gutted out a three-set win against Federer in the Miami quarters, snapping an 11-match losing streak against the Swiss that dated back to ‘03.

“I absolutely believe Andy is in the mix at the [U.S.] Open,” said Roddick’s Davis Cup captain, Patrick McEnroe. “He’s beaten each of the top three on a similar surface this year and was playing great tennis in the spring before the injuries. The top three are still the favorites, but he can certainly be a factor in New York.”

But as redemptive as those Big Three victories might seem, deep down, the man who’s spent six straight years (and counting) inside the top 10 knows he’s got to score them when it really counts — at the majors. And that’s where his focus remains, as evidenced by his decision to skip the Olympics in order to be fresh for the Open.

“I’m telling you, that’s where my head’s at. I want to win another Slam,” he told reporters. “If I’m being honest with you guys, and if you guys are being honest with me, if I go and win a tour event, what are you guys going to say? Who cares?”

And he’s right. Call it Neil Armstrong Syndrome. I mean, once you’ve walked on the Moon, what else is ever going to measure up? A ride on the Whirly Rocket at Miner Mike’s Adventureland and Water World? Not likely. But when you’re the first American man not named Sampras, Agassi, Courier or Chang to win a Slam in nearly two decades, and you do it at the puerile age of 21, those are the kinds of expectations that come with the territory. They mount in a hurry — both from a success-starved nation and from yourself.

“Either you win a Slam or, what, you’re disappointing?” Roddick asked. “You kind of have to deal with that every day.”

What else can Andy do but shoot for the Moon?

By matthew cronin

The inquisitive Serena Williams never got the chance to attend a five-star, four-year university, although she did do a brief stint at a mall-based fashion school in Florida during her early years on tour.

Today, it’s hard to see one of the world’s most recognizable athletes toting a backpack around the eucalyptus groves at Stanford. Had Serena not been packed into the back of a station wagon and driven from her gritty hometown of Compton, Calif., to the tennis factories of South Florida while she was still in elementary school, she might have ended up becoming just another pretty face on the Dean’s List on a campus full of high achievers.

But that wasn’t the eight-time Grand Slam champion’s fate. While dozens of student athletes went through informal summer daytime practices at Stanford and were enjoying the rich yet low-key Palo Alto nightlife, Serena was just nearby, putting herself through a hardcore treadmill of summer play in a attempt to regain her ultra-elite status.

As the top seed at the Bank of the West Classic, Serena had little time for knocking back a couple of light beers during lazy summer afternoons in the student quad.

 “It would have been fun. I think I would have had a fabulous college life. Now I don’t think I can have the ‘big experience,’” she told IT. “If I go back to school it will be strictly for the learning and nothing else.”

Before she re-injured her knee in the Stanford semis and was forced to retire and then pull out of L.A. the next week, Serena was the one doing much of the instructing. In her opening match, she had to pull out all of her reference books to stop the incredibly talented Portuguese 15-year-old, Michelle Larcher de Brito, who for a set and a half, made her look a wizened old schoolteacher, as she flew about the court knocking off winner after winner, ignoring Williams’ stellar résumé. Finally, Serena kicked the kid around 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, but not before she had to come back from a break down in the second set.

 “I thought how I was playing when I was playing a top seed and played better than I normally played,” Williams said. “ I really think she treed [zoned] today.”

That was a long time ago for the 26-year-old Williams. It was back in ‘97, when, as a 16-year-old, she was thrust into qualifying in fall European tournaments with little success. Finally, when she returned stateside a little tougher, she stunned Mary Pierce and Monica Seles before losing to Lindsay Davenport in the Chicago semis.

Serena has put a lot of miles on her body since then, but has also improved immeasurably, with every stroke having much more variety and with a mind full of reasons why she has won and lost matches.

She is often thought of as a straight-up basher, but when called upon can slice, dice, loop and discover short angles. It didn’t get her very far in Stanford, but she made Larcher de Brito think hard about her shot selection before dominating with serves and returns.

“She’s also a great returner,” said Swiss veteran Patty Schnyder. “She’s a shotmaker and on the big points she’s not afraid to hit or even to hold back and play rallies. She can show patience, too, and is just a great champion.”

While Serena’s overall greatness is not in question, her level this year is. She’s had a very good year by most players’ standards, but not by hers. She won three titles — Bangalore, Charleston and Miami — but does not have a major title.  Those have gone to Maria Sharapova (the Australia Open), Ana Ivanovic (French Open) and her sister Venus (Wimbledon).

Don’t think that Serena came off Wimbledon happy having lost in the final to her beloved older sister. She wasn’t celebrating her own performance in the well-played, yet emotionally draining 7-5, 6-4 defeat. “I can’t say I’m pleased with my year because I haven’t won any Grand Slams this year,” Williams said.  “That’s always been the goal for me, but my main goal is to stay healthy. If I can do that, then I’m fine.”

That’s what Serena has done for the most part this year. In fact, ‘08 has been her healthiest season since ‘02. While she will acknowledge that there were times since then that she taken time off to deal with personal issues or rid herself of the boredom of everyday tour life, she will also definitively state that most of her long stints off the circuit were caused by injuries. This year, she’s putting her racket where her mouth is, playing an extremely demanding schedule, which almost certainly cost her in Stanford and then in L.A.

Williams feels she’s moved backward at the Grand Slams. She hasn’t won a major since the ‘07 Aussie Open. This season she was out-run by Jelena Jankovic in Australia, completely fell apart against Katarina Srebotnik at the French Open and then froze in the final games against Venus at Wimbledon.

“I didn’t play well in Australia, the French I shot myself in the foot and at Wimbledon I couldn’t get it together in the final,” she said. “Venus played better than I did, but I didn’t play my best.”

As tired as Serena looks at times, she’s put on her hard hat and raised her jackhammer above the court until turning her foes’ games into rubble. The commitment seems to be there, which means that if she is patient enough with herself, the big results should come.

“I have to win something eventually,” she said. “I feel like I should be able to win for the most part and sometimes I get disgusted because I didn’t make the right shots, or made a lot of errors. I don’t like to lose. I’m a perfectionist and feel like I should be the best at what I do.”

All the best will be at the U.S. Open — a tournament where she hasn’t raised a trophy since ‘02. If she wins the Open and puts herself back into the ‘08 Player-of-the-Year conversation with Venus, Sharapova and Ivanovic, maybe she’ll be able to afford to a year off to study humanities at Stanford and raise a cold one in her own honor. “The U.S. Open is hovering,” said a more than determined Williams. “ I think I’ll be ready for it.”