Andy Roddick: The Clay-Court Season Presents Big Opportunities for the American

Andy Roddick's solid run at the Sony Ericsson Open came to an end at the hands of Juan Monaco yesterday. Next up for Roddick, who shook up the tennis world by stopping Roger Federer in the third round in Miami, is the clay-court season.

And he would do well to get on the dirt as soon—and as often—as possible.

It's often overlooked because most of Roddick's success has come on hard courts and grass: He's a former U.S. Open champion and finalist and has made the finals of Wimbledon three times.

But in perhaps an overlooked statistic, four of the first six singles titles he won in his career came on clay. And those tournaments weren't just won here in the United States: In 2003, Roddick won the St. Poelten event in Austria without the loss of a set, beating Nikolay Davydenko—quite the clay-court player himself—in the finals.

Roddick's last clay-court title came in 2005 when he won the tournament in Houston. Since then, his results on the dirt over the years have been inconsistent. A lot of that can be attributed to missing significant portions of the clay-court swing due to injuries sustained early on in the season.

In the past 12 months, Roddick's been hit by a range of injuries, but his efforts over the past few weeks seem to indicate that he's beginning to move past them. Aside from the win over Federer in Miami, Roddick lost in three tough sets to world No. 7 Tomas Berdych in Indian Wells.

That came on the heels of Roddick making his first quarterfinal appearance of 2012 in Delray Beach, Fla. These results would indicate his game is beginning to round into shape.

And any concerns about Roddick finding trouble going from clay to grass to hard over the course of a few months should be discounted: In 2004 and '05, when Roddick made back-to-back Wimbledon finals, he at least made one clay final before the start of the premier grass-court event.

His epic loss to Federer in the '09 finals came after Roddick advanced to the round of 16 at the French Open for the first time.

For some players, a solid clay-court season can help players get into a nice rhythm with their groundstrokes, and Roddick's grass-court success would seem to support that. His forehand is a weapon on both surfaces, and he still possesses one of the biggest serves—especially the second delivery—in the game.

The clay-court season really gets under way the week after next. With few points to defend from last year, and the tools and experience to do well, Roddick could find the dirt quite beneficial to his results for the rest of the season.