Andy Roddick’s rejuvenation under Jimmy Connors, his new coach, continued last night as he advanced to the quarter-finals of the US Open.
The American former world No 1 recorded a straight sets win over Andre Agassi’s conqueror, Benjamin Becker, to set up a meeting with Lleyton Hewitt of Australia.
Roddick’s career appeared to be going nowhere until Connors, who won eight grand slams as a player, took him under his wing. And this easy 6-3 6-4 6-3 victory over the 112th-ranked German qualifier was indicative of the strides he has made.
“Maybe it’s been a while since he’s just been one of the boys, playing pool and poker and hanging out,” said Roddick of his coach. “We’d practice, he’d come home, kick his feet up on my couch, have a beer. It was pretty surreal.
“I definitely get the sense that he enjoys being back in the locker room and just kidding around.”
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The story of the first week at Flushing Meadows had been the 36-year-old Agassi, who won a pair of dramatic matches before ending his 21-year career with an emotional loss to Becker on Sunday.
But a day later, most of the emotions from Agassi’s farewell were gone as Roddick efficiently finished off Becker in 95 minutes, displaying a dominant serve which produced 19 aces.
In the first set, the 24-year-old broke Becker in the eighth game and then finished off the set with a service game in which he hit an ace that reached 145 miles per hour.
The final two sets were more of the same for Roddick, who won the US Open in 2003 for his lone Grand Slam title to date.
Roddick’s hard serves resulted in three successive unforced errors by Becker to close out the second set, and in the third he broke serve in the seventh game and easily won the final two for his tenth victory in a row.
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Roddick had expressed mixed feelings about being the one to end Agassi’s career, saying he did not want to be the “one that shot Bambi”.
But even without Agassi on the court, the legend’s presence was felt, especially when one fan yelled out: “Come on, Andy, do it for Andre.”
“I definitely knew the crowd was conscious of the fact that he was the one who played Andre for the last time,” Roddick said.
“But that being said, I don’t know how much stock I could put into it today. I was selfishly trying to win my match.”
Roddick’s next opponent will be Lleyton Hewitt, the 2001 champion, who reached the quarter-finals for the seventh consecutive year with a five set victory over No 25 seed Richard Gasquet of France, 6-4 6-4 4-6 3-6 6-3 in the night match.