#Jerry roddick how to#
#Jerry roddick code#

Fans query if the 2003 US Open winner has a sister, well, he doesn’t have any. He was always the future, and now he’s the present.Andy Roddick, a former tennis player, grew up playing tennis with two brothers: John & Lawrence Roddick.

“No more ‘What’s it feel like to be the future of American tennis?’ crap,” Roddick said. Tennis is his job, but there are other passions there, including, at present, Mandy Moore, whose simple good looks and down-to-earth personality are exactly what you’d expect to attract a Roddick.ĭuring this memorable fortnight that was stalled for three days by rain in the second week, Sampras retired, Michael Chang retired and Andrew Roddick rose to prominence. You won’t get that kind of 100 percent focus from Roddick. He was a great champion but somewhat reclusive, and his life was almost fully channeled into tennis. This is the tournament where the great Pete Sampras scored his first of 14 Grand Slam wins at age 19. Open crown, and despite Ljubicic’s sour attitude following his loss, Roddick is in fact extremely popular among his American peers. There were no warnings for behavior during this seven-match run to the U.S.

My mom told me that if I did it one more time she was going to throw me off the bridge to the island.”

#Jerry roddick code#

Six years later, Andy won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior tournament in Key Biscayne, but only after drawing six code violation warnings from chair umpires for his behavior.ĭuring his acceptance speech, Roddick said, “I want to apologize to all the umpires for the way I acted this week. “I pulled him off the court right there.”

“Andy said, ‘And you are a … he used a word we don’t like him to use,” his mother said. He put up a finger to indicate it was out, but he didn’t put up the finger you usually use. “He ducked,” Blanche said, “and the ball went all the way to the fence. The next time he came to the net, Andy blasted a forehand at his head. There was no linesmen or umpire and Junior called it out.”Īndy stood there staring at him with his racket against his chest and his arms crossed over the racket. “He was playing this little Italian kid we called ‘Junior,’ and when the kid had set point, Andy hit a ball that was this far in. “When he was 11 and playing a tournament at Bollettieri’s, I had to pull him off the court,” Blanche Roddick said. His fuse burned down to the dynamite stick many times when he was a junior. So nervous that it’s best if Andy can’t look up into the players’ box and see Mom ready to bite her nails down to the cuticle.Īs tough as the Roddicks have been, they’ve never stifled their children’s personalities, and that, perhaps, is why Andy Roddick seems to many so hard to define as a person. His wife is the hard-core tennis fan, and she does get nervous. Jerry Roddick is a dead-serious man with a Nebraska work ethic that he has driven home to his children. So Roddick, who first climbed to the players’ box to hug the throng in there, had to ask, “Where’s mom and dad?” They pointed across the stadium to an obscure section on the second level. That was so like Jerry and Blanche Roddick, who are deeply involved with the business end of their son’s career, but who stay in the background. We don’t like to sit in the players’ box or be noticed.” “We move around in the stands,” Jerry Roddick said. It took Roddick five minutes to locate his parents among the thicket of 24,000 screaming, admiring fans after this 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over elegant Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero. It’s also for his coach, Brad Gilbert, his team of trainers and agents, and, most of all, his family. Whether Andy says so publicly, he knows this electrifying day in his life is primarily for him, but not exclusively for him. “And that’s not easy in today’s culture.” “We always thought it was important that our children know right from wrong,” Jerry said. They’ve meted out love and they’ve meted out discipline.

#Jerry roddick how to#

In a world of spoiled tennis children and parents who don’t know when to get out of their child’s career, the Roddicks have rewritten the book on how to raise a champion.