Excerpts from Andy Roddick‘s post interview after his third round, four-set win over Phillip Kohlschreiber:
Q: The Isner-Mahut match obliterated every longevity record. Why did that last so long?
A: It’s a combination of things. It’s a flukeish thing. Everything had to go the right direction…You have two guys who were serving great, not returning that well. One thing, they were playing really good tennis, but they weren’t consistently putting enough returns in the court to make someone feel the pressure. They were both serving from ahead the whole time. Seemed that entire fifth set, they had a 15-Love, 30-15 lead. That’s a lot easier to serve from than if you’re Love-15 down and all of a sudden hitting a second serve. It makes it a little more urgent. But even with all that, it should never, ever go to what it did. Everything has to go either the right or the wrong way You guys are probably thinking the right way…there’s no logical explanation for 70 to 68.
Q: Did you know John had that in him spiritually as well as physically?
A: He’s a good competitor. You see a guy 6-foot-9. You like to put the competitor thing on someone who’s little and scrappy. They normally get the benefit of kind of the scrapper title a little bit easier. But he…is a great pressure server. That’s why his tiebreak record has been great throughout his career…He’s pretty relaxed. In a big moment, he doesn’t play worse. I don’t know that I would have said he could go eight hours in one day…He served well at big moments. You know, he adds 15 miles an hour on his second serve and it seems like it doesn’t really affect his percentages at all. You know, but that was a different match. 7-6 in the fifth, you can’t really compare it to 70 to 68 in the fifth.
Q: If you didn’t have to play a tiebreaker, you might have been there a while.
A: It will never happen again. No one has even gotten to 30.
Q: 16-14 was epic.
A: You just ruined my final from last year. Never even come close. Never to 50 again. Never to 40 again.
Q: Pretty wild first week.
A: We were talking about it in our house from the first match out of the gate with Roger being up against it, to the Isner-Mahut trilogy, to the Queen coming, to Rafa in five. If you guys are struggling for storylines, you need to get a different job fast.
Q: Wimbledon seems to be on steroids recently with the final with Federer and Nadal, then your final, and then Isner. Three of the most memorable matches in tennis history in a pretty close cluster.
A: It’s one of those things that is a small percentage of good things, and then a large percentage of fortunate coincidences. It’s on a good run, and I’m glad that stuff is happening here. It’s the Mecca of our sport. That only adds to the spectacle and the drama of everything that takes place inside of these grounds.
Q: A view on changing the final-set rule in terms of a tiebreak?
A: I’m torn. I can definitely understand both ways. The only reason why I would put a cap it at 10-all or 12-all, put a breaker there, is maybe just because of what you saw today from John. You can’t go any longer. It’s not a conditioning issue. No one can play 11 hours and then come back and go straight into an event again where you’re playing three out of five sets. So it would make sense…In fairness to players, they should probably put a cap, but as far as general interest and drama and everything, they probably shouldn’t.
Q: He was so worn out.
A: His toes were just torched. They looked like deli meat. They’re disgusting…They were shredded. I don’t know how he could have thrown in serving for that long. It’s not surprising that he couldn’t go out there. Credit to him, he knew he didn’t have his best stuff. He was finished. I thought that was a classy move [to finish]. He could have easily not given the guy the opportunity. We’ve seen enough guys down two sets and 4-1 and bag it. He probably knew, down two sets, he knew he didn’t have enough in him.
Q: What do you think of the aesthetics of that match?
A: Unbelievable pressure serving. The aces count was unbelievable. Let’s call a spade a spade. If you don’t break someone in 68 games, you’re not returning well. That’s just fact and they would have to tell you the same thing. Once they got into the points, I thought they were playing great. I thought Mahut was hitting the ball well. I thought John was hitting the ball pretty well. But there was a lot of clutch serving. It was a combination of great serving and probably not the best returning.
Q: Do you think with John’s game he can get to Slam finals?
A: Well, he got to get to a slam quarter before you get to a Slam final. Let’s give him a little bit of time. But, obviously, with that serve, on a given day, he could beat anyone. You can’t put a tangible thing on a serve like that. On a daily basis that’s a huge advantage.
