Roddick Gets Ready for Chang Matchup

His mouth was moving, so were his feet, and his serve and forehand moved even faster. Yes, Andy Roddick was a body in constant motion in his French Open debut.

Roddick reached the second round in a hurry Monday, defeating Australian Scott Draper, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, in his opening singles match. The 18-year-old Roddick gained his first victory at a Grand Slam event, turning his other Slam appearance--he fondly called it “a stinker”--at the U.S. Open last year into a distant memory.

Roddick won the first set with a blistering 131-mph serve. He displayed a fine array of shots, powerful forehands and some delicate touch and a clever chipped backhand cross-court passing shot.

“It was my first match in three weeks or maybe more,” Roddick said. “I still have stuff to work on. It was good to get a win, and it felt good. I wasn’t thinking it was my first Grand Slam win because I’ve been winning some matches. Hopefully I can keep it going.”

Some matches means 11 consecutive victories. He won back-to-back clay-court events at Atlanta and Houston and now will face the clay-court guru of years past, Michael Chang. Chang won the French Open in 1989 when he was 17.

“That was one of my first memories in tennis, watching him when he was 17, when he was cramping against [Ivan] Lendl in the [round of 16] serving underhanded,” Roddick said. “I think everybody remembers that. It is pretty amazing. It really sparked an interest for me.”

The upcoming match against Chang, who defeated Alexander Popp of Germany, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1, led to questions about Roddick’s ascent, and the expectations of those who are looking for another Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi or Chang.

“People have to understand I can’t replace four, five of the great players,” Roddick said. “It’s not going to happen, not too smart to think that can happen.”

In addition to Roddick and Chang, two other Americans advanced on the men’s side. Qualifier Michael Russell beat wild card Nicolas Mahut of France, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2, and lucky loser Cecil Mamiit of Los Angeles beat Todd Martin, 6-3, 7-6 (6), 2-6, 6-1. It was Mamiit’s first victory at the French Open.

Another U.S. player, 15th-seeded Jan-Michael Gambill, was confounded by the clay against qualifier Kristian Pless of Denmark. Pless defeated Gambill, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 7-5, in 2 hours 24 minutes.

The only other seeded player to lose was No. 12 Arnaud Clement of France, who was an Australian Open finalist in January. Mariano Puerta of Argentina defeated Clement, 7-6 (3), 3-6, 7-6 (5), 1-6, 9-7. Top-seeded and defending champion Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil was expected to have a difficult first-round match against rising star Guillermo Coria of Argentina but looked in good form, winning, 6-1, 7-5, 6-4.

“I planned to start strong,” Kuerten said. “I knew I played a great game from beginning to the end. So today I really did everything I was planning to do on the court. My service game was strong every time. I was always putting pressure on him, relaxing enough to control the match.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

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