Bud Collins

WIMBLEDON, England - To be honest, I thought Andy Roddick was finished at Wimbledon when he dropped the fourth set of his second-round match to feisty Italian Daniele Braccali last week.

But he gutted out a five-set win, and now it would be a major disappointment to A-Rod and his fans if he doesn't reach the final. With the exits of Tim Henman and Rafael Nadal the bottom half of the draw has opened up for Roddick.

Finding his game
After Roddick’s first-round match (a win over Jiri Vanek), I didn’t really feel like he was playing the type of tennis that would carry him very far here on the lawns of Wimbledon.

But with four matches under his belt -- the latest being his round-of-16, straight-set win over Argentine Guillermo Coria, 6-3, 7-6, and 6-4 -- I think the American second seed is getting better and settling into the tournament.

He's also cranking up his serve when he needs it most, and that can be a lethal blow to his opponents.

In my estimation in his second-round win against Braccali, Roddick cleared a big hurdle, and I find that very encouraging.

If Roddick had lost that five-setter to Bracciali, it would have been the sixth consecutive five- set match that he dropped.

The win over Bracciali took 22-and-a-half hours to execute because darkness suspended the proceedings on Thursday night after Roddick, who won the first two sets, lost the third-set tiebreaker.

With that 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (3-7), 4-6, 6-3 win, Roddick certainly has helped along his career five- set record, but it still isn’t up to snuff at 5-7.

Smart enough to adjust
What I liked most about Roddick in that match against Bracciali is the way he switched his game.

I don’t really understand it, but for some reason Roddick loves the baseline, which to me makes him a one-dimensional player. He’s a young guy, he’s tall, he has a huge serve and I would think he’d want to be throwing himself at the net.

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But against Bracciali, which was a very difficult match, he figured out that he wasn’t going to beat the Italian Stallion from the back of the court, so he had to be daring and come on in.

That match showed me that Roddick can adapt to situations, which I think is crucial for any top player to be able to do.

In his third-round match on Saturday against Igor Andreev, he was playing the kind of guy he likes to play, a baseliner, albeit a baseliner who is not that good on grass.

Scoring the 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) win over the Russian, Roddick didn’t have to go to that other option as he likes to call it, and was able to hang out on the baseline as opposed to moving forward.

He might have gone in a couple of times, but he didn’t have to approach the net very often which I’m sure made him happy -- even if it’s not the strategy I’d prefer to see Roddick play.

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