Roddick makes no friends in Vegas

Andy Roddick withdrew from the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, and has apparently caused a big ol' hissy fit in the process. Starting here:

Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and James Blake make a big racquet as pro tennis returns to Southern Nevada. Oops, Roddick has a hangnail and won’t be playing here.

Then an article turns up (by the same guy), which has a little more info.

...Roddick, the world's fourth-ranked player and the TCO's top seed and biggest attraction, announced Friday, fewer than 72 hours before the start of the tournament, that he was withdrawing because of fatigue.

This is what the tournament organizers call "Andy's-a-looza.''

And:

Good thing Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman isn't worried about selling tickets. Or refunding them. Just as predictable, hizzoner wasn't bashful about saying what was on his mind, and he didn't whisper it off the record behind closed doors in the player's lounge.

Grabbing the microphone at the official tournament draw Saturday, Mayor Goodman basically called Roddick a phony who reneged on his word. Then he said the real reason Roddick bailed on the TCO was because Lleyton Hewitt was going to kick his rear end. (He actually said "rear end'' too, although it took all his restraint not to use the real word in front of the genteel country club types.)

I definitely see where they are coming from, but the lame comments about Hewitt don't really flip my flop. Anyone can see now that both Roddick and Hewitt are not playing their best tennis, and I would guess that each man is far more concerned about himself than maintaining some kind of half-ass rivalry at a brand new tournament.

The part that sucks for the organizers and fans of the Tennis Channel Open is that this kind of backlash is just not going to matter very much for getting Roddick to play here. Injured/tired/lazy or not, I stand by the idea that players are going to just start taking more time off to get their shit together.