Andy Roddick is retiring this season after being “the face of men’s tennis in the U.S. for more than a decade.”  What wasn’t obvious to me until reading this article from the NY Times, was the depth of his character, his integrity and his drive.  With so many bad actors in professional sports, this story was inspiring.  Here’s a few excerpts:

“He’s a study in contradictions: a born entertainer who doesn’t like to leave home; a team player in an individual sport; a deep feeler who is quick to give you a piece of his mind or the shirt off his back; a lunch-pail prodigy.”

“He was precocious, yes, but his defining characteristic has been his persistence. Roddick never had the luxury of coasting, of taking his gifts for granted. How else but through grit and guts does a player with a balky backhand and a butcher’s touch at the net finish in the top 10 in the world for eight consecutive years?”

“Roddick’s serve is such a blur, people have a hard time discerning where his talent ends and his work ethic begins. He’s a classic overachiever who was cast as the suave leading man of American men’s tennis, a role that, true to his nature, he worked earnestly and endlessly to wholly inhabit.” Continue reading “Hard to discern where his talent ends and his work ethic begins…” →