Andy Roddick hits a backhand against Ryler Deheart at the
SAP Open tennis tournament. Photo by AP.
Top-seeded Andy Roddick beat American qualifier Ryler
DeHeart 6-1 7-6 (1) in the first round of the SAP Open.
Roddick was playing his first match since the Australian
Open, when he was hindered by a sore right shoulder in a
five-set loss to Marin Cilic in the quarterfinals.
He has also been bothered by a knee injury that almost forced
him to miss this tournament.
Roddick seemed less bothered by the shoulder than he was by
the giant videoboard over the court at San Jose. He
complained to the umpire before his first service return game
that seeing his opponent on the screen was distracting as he
tried to prepare to return serve.
Midway through the first set, the live video feed was cut
from the scoreboard.
Roddick rolled through an easy first set, breaking DeHeart's
serve twice and winning the set on his sixth of 11 aces in
the match.
DeHeart, who was playing just his fourth match ever on the
main tour, found his groove in the second set but was unable
to pull off his second career win. He
broke Roddick's serve in the second game of the second set to
take a 2-0 lead. DeHeart took a 5-2 lead and served for the
set at 5-3 but was unable to finish the job.
He double faulted on his first point of that game, and then
made three straight errors after taking a 30-15 lead.
Roddick dominated in the tiebreaker. DeHeart hit a forehand
long on the first point to get down a minibreak and Roddick
followed by taking the next three points. Roddick won it with
a forehand passing shot on match point, advancing to a
second-round match against Leonardo Mayer.
In earlier matches, Radek Stepanek, of the Czech Republic,
became the first defending champion in two decades to lose in
the first round of the SAP Open, falling 6-3 6-4 to Xavier
Malisse of Belgium.
The third-seeded Stepanek was broken once in each set to
become the first defending champion to lose his first match
the following year at this tournament since Brad Gilbert was
knocked out by Gary Muller in 1990.
Stepanek beat Mardy Fish for the title last year in San Jose
after losing the championship the previous year to Roddick.
Stepanek wasn't the only seeded player to fall. Fourth-seeded
Tommy Haas of Germany lost his second-round match to Denis
Istomin of Uzbekistan 7-6 (3) 6-2.
Haas had five set points on Istomin's serve in the first set
before falling in the tiebreaker. He double-faulted on break
point in his first service game of the second set and then
was broken at love to lose the match.
In other second-round matches, German Philipp Kohlschreiber
beat Dudi Sela of Israel 6-2 6-0, and Tomas Berdych of the
Czech Republic beat Finland's Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 6-2.
In the late first-round match, second-seeded Fernando
Verdasco of Spain faced Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun Lu.
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