By Blair Henley | Monday, February 24, 2014
Former No. 1 Andy Roddick has had a surprisingly smooth transition out of professional tennis. Find out his thoughts on the sport he left behind and hear how he's handling his new TV gig.
Photo Credit: David Becker / Getty
When a professional athlete steps away from the sport that made him famous, the transition is often a rocky one. Retirement can strip a former pro of his identity, complicating the shift into what non-athletes like to call “real life.” But Andy Roddick is an unusual case. He left the tennis world on his terms, relieved to be free of the constant travel and the pressure of carrying American tennis on his shoulders. He took just short time to brush up on his golf game before diving head first into a broadcasting career as a TV analyst for Fox Sports 1.
We caught up with him at the PowerShares Series Camden Wealth Advisors Cup, where he showed fans he hasn’t forgotten how to crush his serve (though he may have forgotten how to dodge one).
Now that you’re officially a sports analyst, I want to get your thoughts on a few tennis topics. Let’s start with Stan Wawrinka. Based on what he did in Australia, what do you think he’s capable of? Top 3? Beyond?
We’ll see. It’s going to be interesting from here on out. For eight years of his career, his ranking has been between 10 and 40. It shows you how much of tennis is in between the ears. The guy who’s not getting enough credit is Magnus Norman who took Robin Soderling first from outside the top 30 to the top 5. He did the same thing to Wawrinka. They were the same type of ranking and he’s transformed two guys into major contenders. He’s the unsung hero in this whole thing.
Speaking of coaches, how much difference can a good one, or a bad one for that matter, make at that stage of the game?
It’s huge. When you’re playing, you spend way more time with your coach and trainer than you do with your family; more so than team sports. You’re doing dinner with your coaches. You have very, very close personal relationships with them, which isn’t the case if you’re in the NBA or NFL. It has to fit in a lot of ways, which is always a difficult thing. I’ve had ones that have worked on court but not off court and vice versa.
You were a big proponent of players getting a bigger share of the financial pie at Grand Slam tournaments. Now there are rumblings that players in the lower rungs of the game should also be making more. What are your thoughts on that?
It’s easier to make the argument that you deserve money when you’re making the money. In any business if you’re the top salesman, your salary reflects accordingly. When the total revenue of a Slam was 13 percent toward player prize money, I thought that was ridiculous. What they are getting paid at lower levels is probably way more than 50% of total revenues. It’s a matter of how you look at it.
How do you compare the pressure of professional tennis to the pressure of live television?
The pressure on court is significantly greater (smiling). Someone can mess up a segment, the show still goes on and you’re on again the next day. It’s not as crucial. You’re not playing for your country. I don’t think it’s comparable.
I’ve read that ESPN has a boot camp of sorts for athletes turned analysts. Did Fox have anything like that for you? Or did you just dive right in?
They threw me right in (laughs). I didn’t have much of anything. We had four or five audition shows. I was lucky enough that I did a couple of interviews and I had a job.
Do you get nervous?
Oh, sure, especially when I’m covering a lot of sports that I didn’t play. I don’t know that nervous is the word. I’m over-the-top about research. I have to know more numbers to support arguments than the guys who actually saw it and played it.