Roddick Upset

I missed this morning's Australian Open matches because I was out all day, but I came home happy after finding out that Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao defeated Erik Morales of Mexico in their super featherweight match in Las Vegas. I had high hopes when I checked the Australian Open website for scores, expecting that my favorite tennis player Andy Roddick had done just as well in his fourth-round Australian Open match against Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. Unfortunately, he had not.

According to the statistics for the match, Baghdatis hit 63 winners and only 23 unforced errors, while Roddick hit only 39 winners against 31 unforced errors. Roddick attempted to sum up what had gone wrong.

From Reuters.co.uk:

"I just thought maybe I was a little bit spacy out there. Maybe I just wasn't totally on top of things.

"A lot of times I was in control of the point, and he came up with the goods. A couple times I was sloppy at the wrong moments."

The four-set match is a testament to the importance of capitalizing on big points; though Roddick won one more point than Baghdatis overall, the Cypriot won on his ability to convert his break points in each of the three sets that went to him.

I can't explain the feeling of having one's hopes dashed, especially after I had dismissed Roddick's disappointing first-round loss at the 2005 US Open as nothing more than a bad memory. Today, I learned you can always make new bad memories. Roddick Watch has a wrap-up and short analysis of the match that sums up Roddick fans' reactions to the loss.

This is turning out to be a banner year for Fabrice Santoro, though. He's in the quarterfinal of a Slam for the first time in his career, upsetting the 11th seed David Ferrer in straight sets in their fourth-round match.

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 4:55 PM