Andy Roddick remains on track to return at the ATP event in San Jose in two weeks, even though he says he hasn’t hit a tennis ball since hurting his right hamstring in the second round of the Australian Open.
Roddick said on a conference call on Thursday that an exam showed a partial tear in the tendon after he hurt his leg in the January 19 match against Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt.
Roddick, who turns 30 in August, was hurt in the second set and took a medical timeout. He then played 16 more games before retiring.
“It’s a concern,” Roddick said. “I haven’t hit a ball since Australia. We’ve just been working on different types of treatment trying to get it right. The MRI came back probably not as good as we were hoping. I’m hoping to be hitting balls for the first time next Monday … If all goes well there, that should be plenty of time to be ready.”
Roddick’s first match in San Jose is scheduled for February 15, and he is scheduled to play in Memphis the following week. A good run in San Jose would give him a chance to win his 600th career match in Memphis where he won his 30th career title in 2011.
“My only urgent thing right now is getting this hamstring right so I can try to play well at San Jose,” Roddick said.
Roddick was asked if he watched the Australian Open final where Novak Djokovic outlasted Rafael Nadal in the longest grand slam final – just under six hours.
The American said he finds it hard to set his alarm for 1am (local time) when not playing in a tournament. But he was impressed by what he did see of that final.
“It almost looks like the kind of tennis you see when you play Xbox where the guys really don’t get tired and they hit whatever shot they want. It’s pretty remarkable. I know probably at no time in my career, and I’ve been in pretty good shape throughout it, I don’t know if I could play back-to-back six-hour matches of that intensity,” Roddick said.
“What they’re doing is physically impressive.”