David Vincent / AP

Andy Roddick again failed to get past his first match at the French Open, but his loss did reveal that in certain ways he's making progress on clay, writes Bud Collins of MSNBC.com.

More play needed on clay
Roddick knew that he should have taken advantage of more than two of his 12 break-point opportunities, but he also sounded less disappointed than in the past in Paris. Even though Roddick didn’t walk away a winner, he had to be encouraged by some things he displayed in his match against Andreev.

His backhand showed signs of improvement and that is likely due to his spreading his hands apart a little bit on the handle. And he showed a little more understanding of what this clay stuff is all about, a factor I credit to his tutor, Jimmy Connors, who didn’t win here, but reached four semifinals during his days on the court.

Here’s what Roddick and the other Americans need to do about improving their chances at Roland Garros. They need to trek from one end of Europe to the other end and play the whole clay-court circuit. I believe that is exactly the advice that Connors is offering and it's advice well worth following.

Let’s remember it wasn’t that long ago that some American guys showed some impressive things on this surface -- Jim Courier won this title twice, Michael Chang and Andre Agassi won it once, and that was just the last generation of top American talent.

I’m hoping that Roddick isn’t falling into the Pete Sampras trap of "I’m an American and I don’t do clay." Although Sampras made a semifinal here in 1996, for the most part he preferred not to make the big push on the clay.

In order to do well in Paris, American players have to come over to Europe for the clay-court tournaments that precede the French Open and stay in Europe even if they lose early one week. Too many times, the American guys will take an early loss as an opportunity to go home for a few days -- they can certainly afford the constant flights, in first class no less, but I’m convinced that all that trans-Atlantic travel has to take its toll.

Still embracing the challenge
It’s too soon to tell if what we've seen from Roddick in Paris over the last seven years is all he is going to have to give at the French Open. If it turns out that he can’t bring more to the table here, he will go down as another good American who couldn’t handle the clay. But he’ll be in some good company since guys like Connors and Sampras, both far more accomplished players than Roddick, never found the missing piece to the clay-court puzzle either.

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But for now I’m taking Roddick's positive attitude after the Andreev match to heart and hoping that not only will he keep trying on clay, but he’ll try even harder to do better at Roland Garros.

When Roddick was asked if it was up to him, would he like this clay game to go away, he was insistent that he wouldn’t vote for that option, saying, “No. That’s not the mindset of someone who wants to compete…Playing here and trying to construct points in a different way kind of opens things up. I think it helps you going into other surfaces. So I’m not going to give up.”

Given the lack of success by the Americans on clay, that's something I like hearing. American tennis fans should like hearing it as well. Roddick for all his shortcomings on the slip-and-slide surface, does not come up short on remaining determined to one year run off a string of wins at Roland Garros. He hasn't lost hope on this front, and that is a major reason to believe that someday Roddick and the second week of play in the Paris fortnight will cease to be strangers to each other.

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