By Randy Walker
Andy Roddick, displaying the form that could lead him to his elusive second Grand Slam tournament title later this year, defeated Thomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 7-5, 6-4 Sunday to win the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Fla.
Roddick collected $605,500 for the title, his second career championship at the event regarded as the most prestigious in tennis outside of the four major championships. Roddick joins an elite group of players who have won in Miami multiple times, joining Andre Agassi (6 titles), Pete Sampras (3 titles), Roger Federer (2 titles) and Ivan Lendl (2 titles). The 2010 title marked Roddick’s 29th career ATP World Tour title
“I won in different ways,” Roddick said to Mary Joe Fernandez on CBS Sports on how he won the title. “Today, I was really smart with chipping and keeping him guessing. I thought I played a really smart tournament.”
Roddick broke Berdych in the 11th game of the first set and again in the first game of the second set. He won the match in one hour, 43 minutes.
The final was played six years to the day when Roddick won his last – and only other – title in Key Biscayne, when he defeated Guillermo Coria of Argentina 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-1, ret. (best-of-five-set final) in 2004.
Roddick has played the most consistent of any player on the ATP Tour, through the first three months of the 2010 season, reaching the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, winning the title in Brisbane in January, reaching the final in San Jose, Calif., in February and reaching the final at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., last month. Roddick’s match record for the season is an impressive 26-4 and leads the ATP World Tour in match wins (26) and total matches played (30).
While the clay court season now looms through the French Open – a part of the calendar where Roddick, and other American men, do not excel – Roddick’s results this spring will give him confidence that he can break through and win his second major tournament title later in the year.
Since he won the 2003 U.S. Open and finished that season as the No. 1 player in the world, Roddick has failed to break through and win a second major. He lost the 2004 and 2005 Wimbledon finals to Roger Federer – while also losing the 2009 Wimbledon final to Federer in heart-breaking fashion by a 16-14 in the fifth set scoreline. Federer stopped Roddick in the final of the 2006 U.S. Open.