Roddick Is a Serviceable Semifinalist

WIMBLEDON, England -- The most fortunate man in the four quarterfinal matches that ended Thursday at Wimbledon was not one of the winners. It was Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman, who played young American Andy Roddick and lived through it.

Three others, playing serve-and-volley, stroked their way into today’s semifinals. Roddick just bombed his way in.

His 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory took only 1 hour 32 minutes, about the length of your average rain delay here, and Bjorkman, 31 and in the twilight of an average career, was in danger of injury every time Roddick served.

Roddick, who shares with Greg Rusedski the distinction of having hit the fastest serve ever on the tour, 149 mph, hit 13 aces, most of them in the mid- to high 120s and a few in the low 130s. Were Bjorkman not the kind of player he is, a sneaky-quick doubles specialist always moving and trying to chip his way into contention, that ace figure might have been doubled. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Bjorkman was that he got his racket on a lot of Roddick’s serves. It’s not an ace if the returner at least ticks it, and Bjorkman did that a lot. He was like a leadoff hitter in baseball, fouling off pitch after pitch. Sadly for him, foul tips don’t get you another chance in tennis.

So effective was Roddick that, after being broken for the only time in the match at 2-2 of the first set, he won 28 of 30 points in his next seven service games. In the third set, Roddick won 95% of the points played on his first serve, and one of his bombs so handcuffed Bjorkman that, instead of trying to return it, he kind of slapped it away from his throat. Nearby, paramedics tensed.

Many of Roddick’s service games took about one minute. They sounded something like this:

Bang. Ace. 127 mph.

Bang. Bjorkman lunge and tick. 124.

Bang. Bjorkman duck and tick, 131.

Bang. Ace. 119.

Elapsed time: 56 seconds.

Aftermath: Roddick gives one of those I-am-20-years-old-and-doesn’t-everybody-do-this? shrugs. Bjorkman’s eyes get wider and he continues to bleed internally.

Next, Roddick will play Roger Federer of Switzerland. Federer won his quarterfinal in straight sets over Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Both Federer and Schalken have been battling fairly serious injuries, but Federer’s bad back seemed less an impediment than Schalken’s nerve-damaged foot. Schalken said that he might not have been able to play at all, had not the rain Wednesday kept him off the court and allowed him to rest all day. Would he have defaulted?

“Maybe after one or two games, yeah,” he said.

Federer is only a year older than Roddick and is seeded a notch above him here at No. 4. And like Roddick, he has lived with the pressure of great promise and expectation. Certainly, he won’t be putty in Roddick’s hands, as was Bjorkman. But he is human, and it may take a higher being to consistently return Roddick’s serve.

Federer, asked about facing Roddick, lied.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

The other semifinal will match the survivors of Wednesday’s day in the English rainforest.

France’s Sebastien Grosjean completed the yearly inevitability at Wimbledon, taking out England’s overachieving Tim Henman by finishing the fourth set for the 7-6 (8), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

Afterward, Henman, two months from his 29th birthday, conceded that his chances for winning a title here were slipping away.

“That still won’t stop me from coming back and trying,” he said, bravely, and weeping could be heard coming from the pubs.

Grosjean’s opponent will be California’s own surfer dude, Mark Philippoussis.

The transplanted Australian, currently a resident of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, a quiet little community on the ocean just north of San Diego, had the toughest route of all the quarterfinalists. He started his match against lanky German Alexander Popp around 1 p.m. Wednesday and finished late Thursday afternoon, winning the 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 8-6 marathon with one, incredible shining moment.

Popp, No. 198 in the world before Wimbledon and with 19 matches on grass in his career, was serving at 6-all and break point when Philippoussis suddenly became Boris Becker. Popp hit a passing shot to the approaching Philippoussis’ left and Philippoussis dived, got enough of his racket on the ball to volley it over for a winner and the break, then plunged to the turf.

“He makes that volley maybe once in 10 times,” Popp said. “I didn’t do anything wrong on that point.”

Philippoussis, whose serve is as big as Roddick’s but doesn’t appear quite as life-threatening, was asked about his move from Florida to California, and said, “The people [in Cardiff] are just so laid back, so easygoing. It’s such a surf community. Everyone’s just polite to each other.... No one’s materialistic, like when I lived in Miami. In Florida, everything is so much what you have, and you show it off. I just wanted to get away from all that.”

Roddick has been in a Grand Slam semifinal before, at this year’s Australian Open. Flamboyantly, as is his tendency, he battled Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco for five hours in the quarterfinals, winning the fifth set memorably, 21-19. But he hurt his serving arm -- in his case, also known as a bazooka -- in that match and also had little gas left in the tank. So he lost to Rainer Schuettler of Germany, then went home to rest and heal the arm.

After losing decisively at the French Open in May, he hired as his coach Brad Gilbert, who once preached what he’d practiced by writing a book entitled “Winning Ugly.” Gilbert, credited with helping Andre Agassi extend his incredible career, is already getting lots of credit for eliminating Roddick’s hyperactivity on court.

Bjorkman, however, wasn’t buying that.

“Not that I have anything against Brad,” he said, “but I would try to put the credit to Andy, that he has managed to step up and play some good tennis at this time.”

Post-match statements by Bjorkman, of course, had to be a bit suspect, especially in light of his answer to a question about whether his task had been virtually impossible.

“I didn’t see the match like that,” he said.

Clearly a man in shellshock.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Today’s Semifinals

The men’s matchups on Centre Court at Wimbledon:

ROGER FEDERER (4), SWITZERLAND VS.

ANDY RODDICK (5)

Federer leads, 3-0

* 2001: Basel, carpet, indoor, quarterfinals, Federer, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5)

* 2002: Sydney, hard court, outdoor, semifinals, Federer, 7-6 (3), 6-4

Basel, carpet, indoor, quarterfinals, Federer, 7-6 (5), 6-1

SEBASTIEN GROSJEAN (13), FRANCE VS.

MARK PHILIPPOUSSIS, AUSTRALIA

Tied, 2-2

* 1999: Monte Carlo, clay, outdoor, round of 16, Philippoussis, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2

Davis Cup, clay, indoor, World Group final, Philippoussis, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4

* 2001: Stockholm, hard court, indoor, round of 32, Grosjean, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2

* 2002: Monte Carlo, clay, outdoor, round of 64, Grosjean, 6-4, 6-4

SEMIFINALISTS AT WIMBLEDON

* FEDERER: Playing Wimbledon for the fifth time. Lost in the first round in three of four previous trips. ... Reached the quarterfinals in 2001, upsetting Pete Sampras in the fourth round to end the seven-time champion’s 31-match winning streak at Wimbledon.

* RODDICK: Playing Wimbledon for the third time. Lost in the third round in 2001 and 2002.

* GROSJEAN: Playing Wimbledon for the fifth time; did not play last year because of a thigh injury. Had never advanced beyond the fourth round.

* PHILIPPOUSSIS: Playing Wimbledon for the seventh time. Reached quarterfinals in 1998, ‘99, 2000.