Chasing Andy Roddick

The Pimms is overflowing, the champagne is on ice, punnets of strawberries are being caressed with lashings of cream and the ever-present threat of rain hangs ominously over Centre Court. Tennis season is in full swing and the quintessentially British practice of hoping against hope for a Wimbledon winner is about to begin in earnest.

At Queen's, the first tournament of the grass court season, the American Andy Roddick is proving as elusive as a British Grand Slam champion. The four-time title winner has just been dumped out in the fourth round by a player ranked some sixty places below him but the six foot two, world number seven remains somewhere in the grounds, if not in the tournament. The Aegon Championship, held in the well-to-do West London surroundings of Kensington and Baron's Court, typifies everything that's good and bad about the game - access and accessibility.

It's 10.30am on a grey Wednesday morning. A modest queue of tennis fans snake around the block patiently waiting to gain entry into the pre-Wimbledon warm up. They're braving the elements with characteristic good cheer. It's cold and damp but the prospect of being able to see some of the tennis world's biggest stars is more than enough to allay any weather-related fears. A tantalising bill awaits those with staying power: Murray, Nadal, Djokovic and... Roddick. Ah, Roddick, the sometime object of my tennis affections.  It’s been a long time since a tennis player held any sway over me. Over the years, as me and my generation have got older and our players have retired to take their place in the history books, I’ve learnt to be more of a fan of the game than those who play it. But Roddick has proven to be a rare exception. With his classic good looks and erratic on-court performances there's something about Andy that's captured my imagination. But since winning the US Open in 2003 Roddick has failed to capture another Grand Slam title, despite making the Wimbledon finals on three occasions, and another US Open final, and at each time falling to the superior skills of his nemesis, Roger Federer.

For me, before Andy there was Agassi. It was he who first turned me on to the game, just before his Wimbledon final against Goran Ivanisevic in 1992, where he earned his place not only in my affections but in those of tennis aficionados the world over. The flashy American from Las Vegas was the ultimate tennis pin-up, a rebel without a cause who dated Hollywood stars and crashed and burned only to rise again in spectacular fashion. A former world number one, Agassi slumped to number 143 and had to slug it out on the challenger circuit before reclaiming his place at the top of the game. I idolised him. He didn't just look good, he played good too.

Back to today and it's not long before I get the chance to have my curiosity satiated. A car pulls up at the gate that's the player's entrance. I peer in through the slightly tinted windows and see the outline of a man in the passenger seat who looks familiar.  I tell my companions it's Andy Roddick. We stand fixed to the spot in a state of bemused disbelief as the driver parks up and a larger than life, hulk of a man emerges from the Range. A small gathering crowd around him, excitedly pushing pieces of paper in his face, which he graciously signs before making his exit. I try to get myself together and manoeuvre myself in his direction but within seconds he gone.

A young Asian girl in a headscarf displays a disturbing knowledge of the players and their movements. She's been here everyday in pursuit of her idols and is on friendly terms with their various entourages. She's carrying all kinds of tennis paraphernalia- rackets, balls, polo shirts and programmes- desperate to get any kind of physical mark of approval from the players. She and her friends have developed a system of divide and conquer whereby the split their time between the main entrance and the practice courts on constant player watch and text each other whenever anyone of significance makes a move. She's eager to chat. She tells us that we're in the optimum position to get player's autographs and that over the past few days of the tournament she's met them all individually. You'd think this was all talk if it wasn't for the fact that she's on first name terms with some of the grounds staff. She’s regimented in her dedication to the sport. She reminds me of a younger me.

It soon becomes clear that she's a fan of Andy Murray. She knows everything about him and isn't afraid to show it. She reels of his car make, model and number plate; his arrival times and practice times; his eating habits and dietary requirements with frightening ease. I quickly realise that my dedication to tennis was never comparable to hers. She knows what she wants and is determined to get it. She wants Murray and it seems nothing will stand in her way.

Right now, all eyes are on the Scot. He's the defending champion at Aegon and the country's sole hope of any progress at Wimbledon this year. It emerges after Aegon that Murray will be the only British representative in the men's draw at SW19 for the first time in the tournament's 133 year history, and to make matters worse he's not even English! Times are certainly hard. Pat Cash, the Australian former Wimbledon champion is quoted as saying that the LTA is the laughing stock of tennis associations around the world. But if they're laughing at British tennis, British tennis is not laughing at itself.

Complaints that football is no longer a working class game can also be levelled against tennis except that tennis has never been the people's game in the same sense. The LTA, which is responsible for governing tennis in the UK, has come under fire in recent years for failing to develop young talent from across all spectrums of society, meaning that those most financially able to play the game may not necessarily be the most gifted. With Henman and Rusedski long since retired, British tennis hopes have fallen squarely on the shoulders of Murray, a burden which brings to mind another Andy.

Roddick and Murray have much in common, apart from the same first name. Roddick, is the top-ranked American player and the only American inside the ATP top 10. While this may not be lamentable compared to the situation in which British tennis finds itself in, you need only go back a decade or two, to America's tennis heyday when the country dominated the sport across most surfaces with Agassi, Sampras, Chang, Courier, Martin and others on the periphery all flying the stars and stripes for the US to see that American tennis is not in its best shape.

The rivalry between Agassi and his adversary Sampras lit up tennis for over a decade, with Sampras' record number of tittles being one-upped by Agassi when he became only the fifth man in the Open Era to complete a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open in 1999. A clash of the titans, in terms of both style and personality, Sampras and Agassi entertained both on and off the court. Not so with today's game. Tennis is a titanic game, a gladiatorial sport in which the mental is as important as the physical. Roddick himself acknowledged that in order for there to be a real rivalry between him and Federer he needed to win a few matches against Federer first. Thankfully, Rafael Nadal has stepped up to the plate and, hopefully, it won’t be long before Murray does too, not only at the US Open, where he was once a finalist, but at Wimbledon also. And if there’s one thing that Andy junior can learn from Andy senior, it’s how to win at home.

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