US Open Tennis 2011: Does Andy Roddick Need to Cool the Attitude?

Andy Roddick could stand to take a chill pill, but is that what we really want? In all honesty, is he not just providing a different form of entertainment to an otherwise classy game.

The star American had yet another conniption fit at the U.S. Open on Thursday, this time it was over a moisture bubble just behind the baseline at one of the courts before his match against No. 5 seed David Ferrer.

Roddick and Ferrer had refused to play on the court earlier in the day, something Roddick managed to do with some civility, but when they returned to find moisture still on the court Roddick was "absolutely baffled" by the court officials handling of the situation.

"You're killing us," he told tournament referee Brian Earley after he and Ferrer waited 45 minutes. "I'm baffled right now." However, like I said, this wasn't Roddick's first outburst--heck, it wan't even his first of the tournament.

After his first-round win, he suggested that tennis could stand to take some cues from WWE Monday Night Raw: "There's a reason that Monday Night Raw gets better ratings than we do," Roddick said. "It gives people what they want. Tennis is the only thing I know where you can break your own stuff and get penalized for it.

"If you're hurting someone, or someone is in harm's way, you know. I think if you took a poll of who would want to see someone go mental and hit something into the stands. I mean, people would probably vote for that. Let's put it this way: John McEnroe is still getting endorsements and he's 87 years old. So what does that tell you? Love it or hate it, but people watch it."

Before suggesting tennis be more like wrestling, Roddick said that being a tennis analyst is "the easiest job in the world." "... whatever the person does, if it works you just say that's what's good, and if it doesn't work, you guys go, 'He should have done the other things.' So, you know, I'm pretty convinced that I could be a tennis analyst when I'm done ..."

Is he really wrong in either of his contrary, condescending rants? Does smashing a racket really hurt the game? Not really, but it goes against tradition. 

Take what you want from the things that he says, but it does get play in the media and he typically backs it up. What would the sports landscape be if not for the brash, entitled and sometimes arrogant athlete?

Nothing but a vast landscape of the mundane. We need people to go against the flow, otherwise we'd all be a bunch of like-minded buffoons. Love it or hate, Roddick's here to stay for a while longer—enjoy the frenetic rants while they last, because without them everyone else's interview turns into Charlie Brown's teacher.