Andy Roddick Announces Retirement After US Open

Andy Roddick has been one of the American standouts in tennis for the last few years.  He has fallen from his prime and seen the game evolve around him.  He won one Grand Slam, but that was years ago.  Moments ago, Roddick announced that he will retire from tennis after the 2012 US Open.

This is a sad day for American tennis.  If there was an American who was going to win a big event in men’s tennis, it was going to be Roddick.  His big serve carried him for a lot of years, but the game slowly started to change.  Once the more dominant stars arose, Roddick was shoved into the background.

This is a big loss for tennis.  Roddick was one of the stars back in the day, before the injuries slowly started to mount.  Once the injuries came, he was no longer effective as he once was.  He still had a couple of deep tournament runs, but it was nothing like his old form.

The former number one ranked player in the world won 32 tournaments in his career, but not a ton of the big ones.  He was a good player but seemed to struggle when the heat came on.  It is nothing to be ashamed about, because Roddick was dominant when he was on.

Maybe Andy Roddick has one last run in him during this Open.  If he can end up with a good showing, it will look even better on his legacy.  As a man who doesn’t enjoy tennis, I can say I did enjoy watching an in his prime Roddick smash the ball everywhere.  He shall be missed.

Riley Schmitt is a writer for Rant Sports.