SAN JOSE, CALIF. — Top seed Andy Roddick moved on to the SAP Open quarterfinals on Thursday night with a relatively routine 6-3, 6-2 win over Argentine Leonardo Mayer at the HP Pavilion.
Mayer, 22, cracked the top 100 for the first time in ’09, the same year he upset Roddick’s pal, James Blake, in the opening round at Roland Garros. But he had never beaten a top-10 opponent, and Roddick made sure it stayed that way.
“It was a good matchup for me on that court,” said Roddick, who experienced little, if any, ill effects from the pinched nerve that numbed his right hand at the Australian Open. “I was able to take his time away a little bit. I saw that he had pretty big swings, so I was trying to hit the ball through the court.”
Ahead 4-3 in the first set and a break point within his grasp, Roddick went toe-to-toe with his No. 76-ranked challenger in a long exchange of groundstrokes before Mayer dumped an errant forehand into the net.
The Texan punctuated the service break with a more-than-resonant “C’mon!”
Mayer, a confessed soccer fanatic, says that if he hadn’t picked up a tennis racket he might have embarked on a career as a goalkeeper. And that defensive mindset was on display in the second set against the No. 7-ranked Roddick, who dictated the points and often kept Mayer on the baseline and on the run. Mayer managed to fight off three break points while serving at 1-all only to double fault on the fourth (subsequently slamming his racket to the ground in disgust) to give Roddick, who won 87 percent of his first serve points, all the cushion he needed.
Waiting for Roddick in the next round is 6-foot-5 Tomas Berdych, who advanced via a 6-3, 6-2 win over Jarkko Nieminen of Finland. While Mayer was a first-time opponent for Roddick, Berdych is a familiar foe. The two have met on six occasions, with Roddick holding a 4-2 advantage.
“He’s one of the best indoors,” said Roddick, who edged the Czech in three sets in Brisbane earlier this year. “He plays pretty well when he can get a clean swing on the ball and everything’s comfortable. He’s one of those guys who can just come out and beat you. He’s pretty streaky. It’s going to be a very tough match.”
SAP OPEN NOTES
The resurgent Taylor Dent, only weeks removed from the birth of his first child, son Declan, fell in second-round action to fellow American Sam Querrey 6-4, 6-4. The 28-year-old landed only half of his first serves on the afternoon and failed to capitalize on any of his four break-point opportunities. Querrey, meanwhile, moves on to play journeyman American Michael Russell, a 6-4, 7-5 winner over Belgian Xavier Malisse.
Newcomer Ricardas Berankis, 19, who ousted Germany’s Bjorn Phau 7-6(5), 6-3, became the first Lithuanian-born player ever to reach an ATP quarterfinal.
“He’s gone silent on me.” — Andy Roddick on the proposed match between himself and Chad Ochocinco (the NFL wide receiver challenged A-Rod to a match via Twitter, saying that he could take down the former No. 1 if Roddick played left-handed).
“I don’t know if tennis gets enough credit for the kind of visionaries that we’ve had in this game — from Arthur to Billie Jean to the work that Andre‘s done, which I got to see as a late teenager and really had a big effect one me. It was probably the impetus for me to start my foundation. Those are some pretty heavy names as far as the way they’ve affected the world.” — Andy Roddick
