T. GABASHVILI/A. Roddick
6-4, 6-4, -62

Q. Considering your lack of preparation, not a bad tournament.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. I mean, I fought through a couple of matches that were a little dicey. Today I got outplayed from the first ball.
You know, it was a tough matchup for me in these conditions. He has pretty big swings and gets good length on the ball. I'm a little shorter and wasn't able to penetrate the court quite as well.
He was getting in control of the rallies most of the day.

Q. What's your program now?
ANDY RODDICK: I'll go to London. I'm not sure, but obviously playing Queen's, and I'll go to London next week to prepare.

Q. How much had you seen of him? For a guy ranked 116, he hits the ball awfully hard.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, he's been around for a while. The tricky thing is for him normally is having enough time to take those kind of swings at the ball.
Today he definitely had plenty of time to take swings at the ball, so, you know, it was tough for me to penetrate him. He was, you know, similar to, you know, Soderling last year. His swings are big enough to where he can create length even when it is heavy.
My swings are a little bit more compact and more based on timing as opposed to kind of long, kind of fluid, kind of lengthy type thing. You do that over and over, I'm probably gonna come up short against that on conditions like these.

Q. You talked after the last match about how tough that court in particular is. I think that's 0 5.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah.


Q. It doesn't seem to get any better.
ANDY RODDICK: It's rough, I mean, it's it is what it is. I mean, I'm in a little bit of a difficult position here because I'm not, you know, one of the bigger names that's gonna get on center court all the time.
I've never played well here. But then, you know, they don't really want to put me out on I played him on Court 2 once last year, but they don't want to put me out there too often. There you go. I understand it. I just probably wouldn't prefer it.

Q. What happened there in the first set at 4 3 with your racquets? You weren't happy with the tensions?
ANDY RODDICK: They were just tight. You know, I felt like I wasn't getting much on the ball, and so I, you know, kind of threw them in and wanted some looser tensions.
By the time I got them in I think I was down two breaks in the third. Little too late to experiment.

Q. Did you ask to play on another court, or...
ANDY RODDICK: I mean, they know. But like I said, it's nobody's fault. I mean, you know, I'm not the guy that's gonna be on center here. You know, I understand that. Let's not make this into an issue that it's not.
I don't know if the court favors me, but at the same time, I don't think anything's going on. I think they're putting me on the court they feel I should be on as far as people coming to see it.

Q. You had a discussion with the chair umpire that I missed most of. It was something that you said happens year after year. What was that about?
ANDY RODDICK: One of the things that I do have a problem with is the tarps in the back of the court on rough days. They dry the whole court, but then they leave the tarps soaking wet.
So if a ball rolls through a puddle enough times, can you tell me what happens to it? Then when clay attaches to it, it doesn't get lighter. You know, so it's something that I've been pretty adamant about complaining about behind closed doors for a long time, you know.
Even the umpire said too me, Well, it happens every year. I'm going, Is that supposed to make me feel better? I didn't understand that logic.
So then I want to go through the proceedings of what he did to make sure it didn't happen again. He told me he talked to Brian. Then I said, Well, okay, do you know who Brian talks to? He said, The big chief. I said, Who is the big chief? He goes, I don't know.
I said, Well, now I understand why nothing gets done. That's one thing that only thing about that is I think that's preventable. I don't think that's something that needs to, you know, happen all the time.

Q. I can go back and look at the transcript when you talked about Lenglen before. Can you briefly sort of summarize why you don't like that court as much as otherwise?
ANDY RODDICK: Well, it's known as the slowest one. It's a fun court as far as people viewing, and I have to issue with it. It's just the way that it plays isn't really doesn't really help me out much. That's all. That's fine.
There's courts like that everywhere. You have to deal with it and you have to play through it. Everything that I'm telling you guys, everybody deals with out there. It's nothing just for me. It's just my personal preference is all.

Q. I think Gabashvili had about 40% first serves in the first set. Was that a concern for you at that time that you weren't able to take advantage?
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah. I mean, I had a look to break back there and I hit actually a decent forehand and missed it wide.
If I can break back there, who knows what happens? The thing he was doing was just taking control from the first ball that I you know, serves probably don't matter as much out there. But he was taking control of the points and getting good hits on the first balls and the rallies. I felt like I was playing from behind in a lot of the points.

Q. Do you think if you had got that break back, maybe taking that first set you could have gone on to win, or...
ANDY RODDICK: Well, I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and deal in hypotheticals. Obviously your chances are a lot better winning a set if you're on serve as opposed to down a break.
The way the match was played and the way the points were constructed, I was I wasn't on top of anything today.

Q. Gabashivili hit almost 60 winners. Did you feel like facing Marat Safin again?
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah, sure.

Q. If I could change topics rather radically, in the past you've had some really good calls in terms of predicting sports events. You're going to be heading to England. Your home country is going to be facing an English
ANDY RODDICK: Bill, I've got the British crowd on my side right now. I've built up a lot of goodwill over the last couple of years that I don't want to ruin by answering this question.

Q. So you're not copping out. Give me a score.
ANDY RODDICK: I'm not gonna give you anything. I'm going to enjoy my sudden popularity in London and leave it at that.

Q. PR move.
ANDY RODDICK: That's fine. We can talk afterwards.

Q. Okay.
ANDY RODDICK: Did you just call me a peon?

Q. No, I didn't.
ANDY RODDICK: Okay.

Q. Is it going be difficult for you not to overamp emotionally in your Wimbledon preparation because of what happened last year?
ANDY RODDICK: I don't think so. I'm always anxious going into Wimbledon. I don't think that's gonna change. Last year is last year.
You know, I don't go in with any sense of entitlement or any sense of anything like that. I'm excited to get onto a surface that I actually feel that I can impose my game on a little bit more.
It's a long process. It's still a long ways away. I'm going to be focused on this practice week and trying to get in some fitness and whatever else, and then you deal with Queen's. Wimbledon is still a long ways off.

Q. Given what you just said, and you've repeated this many times over the last 10 months or so, are you going to have a different feeling walking in? You've been in finals before, but the whole sentiment that's going to greet you when you come back, do you feel that that's going to make any difference?
ANDY RODDICK: I don't know. I honestly don't know.
I'm sure I'm sure it will be a little bit different just because of the type of final it was last year and everything that was involved in it, but, you know, for me to answer that, I would have to correctly predict other people's reactions, which I don't which I don't know. We'll see.

Q. You said the other day something about knowing a match is going to be crappy tennis and just wanting to be the one who is less crappy.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah.

Q. Was that the same description for today's match?
ANDY RODDICK: Well, I wasn't less crappy. No, he played good tennis. I thought he played well. You know, credit to him. I was allowed to get my feet into the last couple of matches and kind of it's a lot different when you can keep it tight, keep it tight, keep it tight, and it comes down to two or three points.
I'm good in that situation, but he got the best of me, and he was getting the best of me in 70% of the points as far as the way they were constructed.
You know, he kept it from being a match that hinged on a couple of points.

Q. In the matches here, how satisfied were you with the way you were hitting the ball?
ANDY RODDICK: Today?

Q. Overall in the tournament.
ANDY RODDICK: Um, it was okay. It wasn't the best. Definitely could have been better, but I just felt like my movement was so bad. When you don't get to a ball, it makes it real tough to hit it well.
As far as timing and practice and stuff, I feel fine. It's just a matter of, you know, when I was getting stretched here, I felt like my movement was horrendous.

Q. Worse than other years, or...
ANDY RODDICK: Sometimes. Maybe that's just match preparation coming in or whatever, you know. I mean, I was trying too much to put a Band Aid on a problem as opposed to, you know, an actual solution.
I didn't feel comfortable moving around. That made it real tough to feel like you hit the ball well. If you're not moving well, you're not gonna hit the ball well.

Q. Earlier in the week you talked about how you sort of have to go against form here on the slow clay.
ANDY RODDICK: Yeah.

Q. Can you describe what it feels like inside to go out on the grass the first time or two? Does it just give you more confidence? You're home free? This is home turf? What goes on inside?
ANDY RODDICK: Well, it's not as much thought. You know, here there's a lot of thought, a lot of adjustments that have to be made, you know. I have to compensate in certain areas for, you know, weaknesses that I do have on this surface.
On grass, I don't feel like there's that many holes. I feel like my game automatically kind of translates well to that surface, you know. My chip stays down. My backhand goes through the court a little bit. Obviously my serve gets a little bit better.
You know, my returns don't get any worse on grass, and some people's do. They take big swings and have to step back to hit it. That's a real problem. But I don't really do that too much, so, you know, it's just maybe a more comfortable feeling.
With that comes a sense of confidence, I guess.

Q. Do you think you're a better mover this year than 12 months ago?
ANDY RODDICK: I'd say similar. I was moving well last year. Last year, you know, the offseason of '08 was when I felt like I made some pretty big strides. I was playing pretty good last year.

Q. When was the first time you were on grass? Did you say, Oh, this is for me?
ANDY RODDICK: Oh, no. Actually, the club in Austin, I used to watch Rennenberg and it was Kevin Kerns and Rennenberg at Barton Creek, and they used to have two grass courts there. I think I was eight or nine years old. I used to watch them, and I'd sneak on before the pro would kick me off.
So that was a while ago. But, I mean, obviously you don't play on it too much. A decade goes by where you haven't hit on it at all. I just liked it.

Q. I wanted to ask about the XO in Dallas that's coming up in July. Any thoughts? Is it sort of a kick to play in that stadium? Do you have a relationship with Jones?
ANDY RODDICK: I don't. I haven't met Old Jerry. For me, it's easy. I can drive there, and I think just I think tennis getting into kind of mainstream venues like that more often is a good thing, you know. Selfishly, I like it.
My friends, they don't watch me play too much, my friends from home, so we might just make a weekend of it and have some fun. I think it will be cool. I don't know if we're going to fill it, but... (laughter.)


(via Roland garros)

Roland Garros 2010: Andy Roddick's 29. May Interview