[Sipewrio]

Looking at Ranking History of Andy Roddick in the Atp page http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/P...dick.aspx?t=rh I just found out that Andy is player locked in a Limbo when it comes about rankings.


Since January/2005, Roddick's ranking travels from 3 to believe...12! When Nadal arrived and Hewitt became stronger he dropped from 2 to 4. Ok #4 is a very good ranking and assures him he wont play his greatest nemessis (Federer ,sure!!!) before semis.

But even Nalbandian started to steal some ground from Andy and he found himself as #5 in the rankings.

Lots of players spent some time in the top 5 this last 4 years: Hewitt, Safin, Davydenko, Ljubicic, Ferrer, Gonzalez, Blake????!!!! Except for Safin and Hewitt, all of them with no grand slams under their belts. Except for Hewitt, none of them is a year-end # 1 player. None of them has 27 ATP tour titles. But any of them performed better enough than Andy to be ranked ahead of him.

And it comes to nowadays...Djokovic, Murray and Del Potro. Those guys are since the US Open a safe lock into the top 5. First came Djokovic in 2007. Fast he became a Grand Slam winner, and 2 times it was a victory from the #2 ranking. He made a poor grand slam season this year, but it was consistently in the final rounds of the other big tournaments.

In 2008 came Murray. Started with an US Open breakout final and now he has the same number os Masters Series of Roddick: 4. Spent some tome in the #2 position and often beats the top guys. Still has to win a Grand Slam. But its likely he will!

Now its Del Potro time. He's the new US Open winner beating Federer and Nadal back-to-back and since August is a safe lock in the top 5 too. Has the same age Andy had when he became the US Open champion, but not a great wave of expectation over him. He's supposed to be one of the greatest players of the world through the next 5 years, but he's not expected to be the "new Pete Sampras".

All those expectations over Roddick's career just made him just burnout. He's not that accomplished and gifted. He has the best serve and a good fight spirit. He reach what he can. And now with so much good players around him hes imprisioned in the limbo of rankings. If not by injuries from the top 5, Andy has a very slim chance of return to the top 4 again. He will remain travelling in the limbo of the outside positions of the top 10, and with some bad results (like not defend his 2009 Wimbledon final points) could return to the #12.

For a guy who was expected to be one of the great American players (We are talking about a country that gave us Sampras Agassi, Connors, J-Mac and Courier) and a HOF inducted, Roddick seems like a overachiever more than ever. And please dont come with the talk of "Federer denied him a better career"... You get what you deserve it.

So...the limbo seems like a good place to be right now for him. Sorry! Maybe not a good place...but his right place for sure. I'm not happy saying this but...this year Wimbledon Final should be the Swan Song of Roddick's career. And becomes sad when you see the guy improved...but not enough.