SPORTS

Roddick goes past 1,000 aces for the season

November 20, 2004 10:10 IST
Andy Roddick completed round-robin play at the Masters Cup an unbeaten 3-0 on Friday blasting his way past Argentina's Guillermo Coria 7-6, 6-3 and into the tennis record books.

Having already clinched a place in the last four of the season-ending $4.45 million event, Roddick used the match as a tuneup for a Saturday semi-final showdown with Australia's Lleyton Hewitt and topped the 1,000-aces mark in the process.

Masters champion in 2002 and 2001, Hewitt booked his spot in the last four earlier in the day with a 6-1, 6-2 demolition of French Open champion Gaston Gaudio.

The two former world number ones will be joined in the semi-finals by the defending champion and current top ranked player Roger Federer of Switzerland, with Russia's Marat Safin taking on Britain's Tim Henman later in the evening to complete the field.

"I feel good, I'm going to take a lot of positives out of these three matches," said Roddick, looking ahead to his semi-final with Hewitt that will also determine who will finish the year with the number two ranking.

"I didn't drop a set but I had a couple of close ones so I wouldn't say I dominated.

"But

it should be a good match. I'm going to give out some pretty big blows and he's going to send them back to me."

Playing his first tournament since undergoing shoulder surgery in July and with no chance of advancing, Coria offered up some surprising resistance but in the end had no answers for Roddick's punishing power as the hard-hitting American blasted 15 aces past him to reach a career milestone.

The aces gave Roddick 1,008 for the season, joining Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras as the only players to go over 1,000 since the ATP started keeping records in 1991.

Ivanisevic accomplished the feat four times in his career hitting a record 1,477 in 1996 and was the last to reach the plateau in 1998.

Roddick, who also holds the record for the fastest serve at 155mph, needed every one of his aces in the opening set, taking it in a tie-break 7-4.

Backed by a boisterous hometown crowd, Roddick sped to a 5-0 lead in the second but had trouble closing out the match as the South American baseliner dug in, taking three straight games before finally succumbing to the 22-year-old American.

Source: REUTERS
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