Return On Risk

Coach Larry Stefanki watches Andy Roddick of the United States of America in his fourth round match against Fernando Gonzalez of Chile during day seven of the 2010 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 24, 2010 in Melbourne, Australia.

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For the last year or so, Andy Roddick’s box during matches has been occupied with what I sometimes think of as the human equivalent of two bobble-headed dolls. One is grizzled, the other gorgeous, yet both of them seem to be doing the exact same thing whenever the TV camera pans to catch their reactions: nodding in approval.

The gorgeous one of the pair is model Brooklyn Decker, who we can assume is simply nodding out of empathy and support for her man. Wouldn’t we do the same in her shoes, or should I say in her shades? The grizzled one, though, is more of a puzzle. He is Larry Stefanki, the coach Roddick hired at the end of 2008, and it would seem not to make sense that he nods not only when his charge makes a big play, but when he frames a forehand or offers up a sacrificial lamb of an approach shot. Aren’t coaches supposed to be more critical than that? Shouldn’t he occasionally be frowning instead of nodding?

It’s probably just in my imagination that Stefanki only nods, but he remains a mysterious figure to me. And so it was out of curiosity that I recently combed through interviews and articles on the Web, to assemble what I think are some intriguing aspects of this marriage of shrewd coach to stubborn player. As research goes it’s a quickie––but the results are still interesting, I think, especially given how many fans have expressed disappointment in Roddick’s playing style post-Wimbledon and prior to his title win this April in Miami, at what we are now pleased to call the Sony Ericsson Open.

Are these fans right in thinking that Roddick should lose all the “slicing and dicing” and revert to his older style of going for broke with big forehands? Or that the Wimbledon loss left Roddick devastated, and that what enabled him to pick up the title at Miami was not better strokes or better tactics, but simply a renewal of self-belief?

Or is it Stefanki who’s right, when he says that even the slicing and dicing is part of Roddick becoming a more complete player; that the Wimbledon loss was a mental plus and not a minus; and that 2010 is the year that Roddick stops underachieving and starts winning slams again?

You’ll find no absolute answers in what follows––just a smorgasbord of the quotes and contrasts I have found most tart or most tantalizing.

Roddick’s Return Game

At one point Stefanki did an interview with Steve Flink of TennisChannel.com (the URL is apparently no longer available) in which he described one of his goals for Roddick thusly:

Andy is a big-body athlete, more of a Boris Becker type of athlete. He is not a David Ferrer or a Davydenko, so he needs to make an adjustment and take risks at the right times. This past year he was below 30 percent on capitalizing on break points and he needs to bring that percentage way up. Andy can take more chances on the return off second serves, coming in and putting a lot of pressure on guys. That is how I see him playing.

I missed the crucial 2nd and 3rd sets of the Nadal match at Miami, but I hear that in fact, Roddick did start attacking the second serve, and with good results. But if we check out Roddick’s ATP stats for 2010 so far, we’ll see that for the stat Stefanki was talking about, break points converted, Roddick is as bad as ever––just 31 percent. That ranks him 63rd on the tour in this area.

It would be interesting to know why Stefanki mentioned this particular stat. It doesn’t seem especially meaningful when taken in isolation, given that the current leader is the amazing Evgeny Korolev. I think it more telling that Roddick trails badly in all return categories compared to the very top players. The category that really shows the difference is for return games won: Murray, Nadal, and Federer are ranked 5, 6, and 7 here, while Roddick is out of sight at 53.

So unless the Nadal victory represents a sudden breakthrough for Roddick, he has got a lot of work to do on his return game if he is to meet Stefanki’s expectations (not to mention ours). Can he do it the way he did against Nadal––flick a switch mid-set? And even if he can, does he want to, or will his innate conservatism win out and keep him passive? That brings us to our next topic.

Rabbits And Risks

Stefanki and Roddick often don’t seem to be on the same page when they talk to the press, especially when it comes to the need to take some risks. Here’s Stefanki from the Flink interview, reiterating his view that Roddick should play as big as he is and “take a lot more chances”:

As I told Andy, the longer a point lasts against a Davydenko or a Ferrer, the odds are more against him. If the ball crosses the net 25 times and Andy gets farther and farther back behind the court, here is this big body guy playing against a rabbit. He doesn’t want to be running side to side, over and over again. And they are loving it if Andy does that. Andy holds serve 91 percent of the time which is the best percentage in the game. So I mean, come on, he should be taking a lot more chances and putting more pressure on these guys.

But here’s that same big-body guy at his press conference after the Nadal match, describing what it felt like for him to unleash some forehands:

You know, I took a lot of risk there in the last two sets. I said it on the court and I’ve it said a couple times: The best thing I can think of is I rolled the dice a lot and came up Yahtzee a couple times.

Your best weapon after your serve, a near-legendary shot in its day, and you compare it to rolling dice? What does that say about your appetite for going for winners?

And here is Roddick trying to wriggle out of the logical next question: given that playing big rather than small worked so well, why hasn’t he done it before?

Q: In the eighth game of the second set when you broke at Love and you were ripping and/or taking some nice cuts on your forehand, what’s prevented you in the past from doing that?

AR: Well, like I said, you can’t exactly plan on sticking three returns in a game on the line and backing him up. It’s not as easy as, “See ball, hit ball.” If that was the case, a lot of us would do that. I started sticking returns, and I got hot on my first and second serve returns. I think that’s what enabled me to really kind of get two feet under myself and take a cut.

Notice that Roddick doesn’t pause and say something like, You know, you’re right. Maybe my big cuts went in because I still possess an excellent forehand. And after all, my coach does want me to become more of an attacking player. Maybe I should listen to him.

Instead, he says you can’t count on being “hot” (read “lucky”) and so he doesn’t––he prefers to play it safe unless, as he said elsewhere about the Nadal match, the situation is “desperate.”

This is the sort of comment that makes me wonder what exactly Stefanki is nodding at all the time. Because Stefanki also said this in the Flink interview, and you know that means he has said it to Roddick countless times by now:

He has got one of the biggest forehands in the game and I told him that as a big guy he has to take advantage of that . . . Now he tends to just roll it crosscourt. That is not my style of play and not how Andy should be playing. And he knows that. Like every great player, Andy is a perfectionist with the highest standards. He knows he doesn't want to fall into the trap of just getting balls back.