| Agassi helped his fellow countryman win the ATP Championship Race American tennis player Andy Roddick ahead of schedule, after the third day of play at the Masters Cup tournament in Houston - the final men's competition of the season with a total prize fund of $3.7 million - became the winner of the 2003 ATP Championship Race. This became known after his closest pursuer, Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, lost to Roddick's countryman Andre Agassi in the second round - 6:2, 3:6, 4:6 and lost all chances of reaching the semi-finals, and accordingly, to catch up with the American on points.
Switzerland's Roger Federer, another G8 player who had a theoretical opportunity heading into the tournament, lost it a day earlier as Roddick beat Spain's Carlos Moya in the opening match. However, Federer was not at all upset by this circumstance; his chances of keeping up with the American were too illusory, and in the second round, after a clear defeat of the Argentinean David Nalbandian, he was the first to secure a pass to the semi-finals. From the so-called “blue” group, the fight for the title in Houston will continue with the winner of the fight between Agassi and Nalbandian, which ended early this morning Moscow time. Ferrero's incentive for the final match of the preliminary stage against Federer will only be purely material. Victory in a meeting that means nothing from a sporting point of view will bring him 120 thousand dollars.
“I'm glad I made life easier for Andy Roddick,” Agassi said, smiling contentedly after the match with Ferrero. - The newly crowned winner of the championship race had a great season, his progress seems fantastic to me. Andy has a great future, he’s just at the beginning of his journey, but Roddick can already be proud of what he’s done this past season.” From now on, the best player in the world, who immediately found himself in the circle of journalists, noted the help of his native walls. “I played very well in those tournaments that took place in the United States. This is no accident. The support of loyal fans and the presence of family and friends in the stands is very important to me,” Roddick said.
The Association of Tennis Professionals introduced a scoring system for the championship race in 2000. Its first winner was the Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten, who was only slightly ahead of our Marat Safin at the very last moment. The following season, the Australian Lleyton Hewitt, who at the age of 20 became the youngest of the best players on the planet, excelled by a huge margin of 102 points. A year ago, Hewitt repeated his success, and Marat Safin finished the season in a respectable third place.
The new ATP champion Andy Roddick was born on August 30, 1982 in the small town of Omaha in Nebraska, and now lives in Florida. Eddie began his professional career in 1999, and it took him two years to win his first serious tournament. In 2001, Roddick won three titles, all of them won in the USA - at competitions in Atlanta, Houston and Washington. Andy confirms his reputation as a purely “home” tennis player next year - he wins in Memphis and Houston. And only this season the American finally manages to win the decisive match at a foreign tournament - in St. Pölten, Austria. August turned out to be the most successful for Roddick - he took one after another the main prizes at the Masters Series competitions in Montreal and Cincinnati, and then achieved triumph at the US Open.
Andy's favorite court surface is hard, where he has an excellent career win-loss ratio of 104:34. By an interesting coincidence, one of the most inconvenient opponents for him is Andre Agassi (1:4), and most often Roddick’s victim was the Belgian Xavier Malisse. He has seven defeats in all seven matches played against the American. Many tennis experts note that Roddick’s rapid progress began from the moment the famous former master Brad Gilbert began working with him as a coach on Agassi’s advice. In five years as a professional, Andy has already earned a little over $5 million, more than three million of which this year. Ilya TRISVIATSKY |
|
