Alix’s World: Not A Dandy For Andy

Written by: Staff on 29th June 2010

Alix's World: Not A Dandy For Andy |

If you want to get ahead, get a chicken. And if you want to lose in the fourth round of Wimbledon, play like a headless chicken.

So it was that Andy Roddick, he of the heartbreaking 16-14 fifth set loss in the final to Roger Federer last year, lost 4‑6, 7‑6, 7‑6, 6‑7, 9‑7 to Lu Yen-Hsun on Manic Monday. And Mr Lu knows all about catching chickens

When Roddick lost to Federer, he became the darling of Centre Court: he played his socks off, he held serve for all the but the last game of the match and he had the good grace to beaten by The Lovely Rodge (in the event that the Brits can’t produce a winner of their own, we adopt a serial winner of a Brit tournament. We are not proud. We will take what we can get). And, most importantly of all, he had acted like a decent cove when The Lovely Rodge – or TLR – made history. Job done.

But when he lost to Lu, he knew he had just let a fabulous opportunity go down the gurgler. Next up would have been Novak Djokovic, a bloke he had beaten three times last year. Then, potentially, it could have been TLR. That would have been would worth a shot: get past TLR and you are in the final, my son. And with no TLR to play when you get there.

But Roddick didn’t win. For 4½ hours and more, he played Lu at Lu’s game only to discover that he was not nearly as good at it as the man from Chinese Taipei. But when Plan A didn’t work, Roddick fell back on, sadly, Plan A. And lost.

He was in a seriously chippy mood when he reappeared to explain himself. Was his serve, perhaps, not quite what he had wanted it to be? Clearly not. “I didn’t get broken for five sets,” he said, glossing over the fact that he was broken in the last game of the match. But in the mood that Roddick was in, no one was going to pick him up on that minor omission. “It wasn’t my serve. It wasn’t my service games. It was my returning. That was crap. It was really bad.”

His basic game plan was a bit iffy, too. If the man at the other end has happily set up camp several feet behind the baseline and is welting the ball for all he is worth, it is probably best not to follow suit – a chap could be there for weeks. But, for a bright man, Roddick can be awfully dim at times. And for a man who thinks finesse is a hair care product, he can be shown up as rather limited when someone plays him at his own game. So Roddick came second. Again.

Anyway – Lu has turned out to be a real star. He is the world’s 82^nd best player and, coming into SW19, he had 2-11 win-loss record against top 10 players. He beat a jetlagged and grumpy Andy Murray in the first round of the Beijing Olympics and, back in the mists of time, he had once beaten that well-known grass court aficionado, Guillermo Coria at Queen’s Club. But against Roddick, he was on fire.

It turns out that Lu has hidden talents. He can catch chickens. His father had a business dealing in live birds back in Chinese Taipei and, when he was a good deal younger, Lu had helped out.

“I can catch a chicken,” he said as the massed ranks of the British press took copious notes. Roddick losing was a down page story – a chicken catcher in the quarter finals of Wimbledon was a page lead. “I can show you. Yeah, serious. I can catch a chicken. I don’t really like because smell really bad. But I know is very tough work. They always working between 1:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the morning, like very early. That time the chicken cannot run away because they cannot see.”

Lu’s nickname is Randy for reasons that never really became clear. Apparently, his English teacher had wanted the class to adopt English or American names so that, in some strange way, they would be more in the mood to learn the language, but the tale lost something in the telling. “But I don’t know the meaning, actually,” he said innocently in front a room full of tittering British hacks.

Now, I have to explain: in Britain, randy means… well, it refers to… the hell with it – it means horny.

So when a British voice from the floor asked: “Do you want to know what it means?”, Lu looked around the room, realised that he was being done up like a kipper and, quick as a flash, said: “No. Better not.” He had no idea where this was leading, but he could spot a trap a mile off. It must have been those chicken catching instincts he honed with his dad. Anyway, he learns fast, does Lu.

What Novak Djokovic would do well to learn is that if he acts chicken against Lu – he was two sets up against Lleyton Hewitt, called for the trainer, took a bathroom break and then, seemingly fit as a flea, won, Lazarus-like, in four sets – Mr Lu will truss him up and have him oven-ready.

And talking of quick learners, Serena – for it is she – has cracked the ways of the British press. Serena, as the champion, is a good story. Serena winning things, especially Wimbledon, is a better story. But Serena knocking out a crowd favourite and the photogenic friend of every Fleet Street picture editor, is a bit of a downer. What to do when you’ve just clumped Queen Shazza in straight sets? When in doubt, talk football.

You see, on Sunday, England had played Germany, the old foe, in the last 16 at the World Cup. And they were beaten 4-1, their worst defeat in World Cup history. Did I say beaten? Sorry, I meant thrashed. Marmelised. Molocated.

So, as Monday dawned, ‘eads ‘ad dropped, as they day in football parlance. There was a general air of glumness around. What had made England’s loss all the more unbearable was that their second goal had not stood.

Frank Lampard’s shot struck the underside of the crossbar and bounced a good yard inside the goal. But neither the referee nor the linesman saw it. Had there been Hawk-Eye on the goal line, it could all have been different. It would have been England’s second goal in two minutes and would have levelled the score at 2-2. It might have changed the whole complexion of the match. Well, it might if the defence had actually turned up for duty. But don’t get me started (and England is not even my team, for Pete’s sake).

So Serena, spotting the mood in the press bunker, dutifully bigged up Queen Shazza (so giving the picture editors cause to run huge snaps of the blonde wonder in the morning papers) and then leapt on the first World Cup question that came her way.

“I don’t know if I can be a genuine fan of football because of the calls,” she offered, sympathetically. “I mean, the call with the England game was outrageous. It was just…” At this point she was almost speechless, so earning huge respect from the listening throng. “Humans can’t be perfect, which is why there is technology,” she went on. “I don’t understand how, in this day and age, they don’t have better technology. It could have been a totally different game if it was 2‑All. Unbelievable.”

Ignoring the fact that she is serving like a sniper, playing like a champion and fighting like a demon, on her current press conference form, Serena will Wimbledon this year, regardless of what happens on the tennis court in the next few days.

One last footnote: Andy Murray is the last man standing who has not dropped a set so far. He beat Sam Querrey in a hugely efficient three sets on Monday and then offered the thought that: “You need to be prepared to change your tactics or change the way you’re playing when you’re out there if you want to win the big tournaments.”

Mmm. Pity he never mentioned that to Fabio Capello, the England football manager, before the lads went off to South Africa. It could have saved the team a lot of embarrassment and, given that Capello is on £6million a year and seems determined not to resign, it could have saved the English Football Association an awful lot of dosh.

Topics: Alix, Andy Roddick, Bloke, Brits, Chickens, Chinese Taipei, Dandy, Fabulous Opportunity, Game Plan, Good Grace, Headless Chicken, Last Game, Manic Monday, Mr Lu, Novak Djokovic, Omission, Rodge, Roger Federer, Service Games, Wimbledon