Andy Roddick is trying to make his transition from tennis to the media working world of an ex-jock as effortless as possible. With his debut at the weekend on FoxSports, the 30-year-old who retired suddenly after his loss at the US Open in 2012 has made the switch with minimal fuss.
While he has put most of tennis life behind him, Roddick says that some things in the game are harder to lose than others after a dozen years on court, with a 2003 US open tittle and No. 1 status to prove it. .
“I’ve had an easier transition into retirement because I expected it to be difficult,” Roddick told the Washington Post before his latest television debut as a pundit on the American sports which he has always followed as a fan. “I expected to miss Wimbledon when I watched it. I expected it to stir up emotions. I think it’s foolish to think that if you’ve done something for so long, you can kind of delete it out of your memory bank or delete every emotion attached to it. I knew when I retired what that meant.”
Roddick put in several weeks of rehearsal for his start on the “Fox Sports Live,” a three-hour show that he’ll co-host each weeknight for a new cable offering from the Murdoch-owned network. It is a direct challenge to the popular and long-running ESPN SportsCenter show.
Roddick actually earned his TV gig by doing radio sporadically during the final phases of his tennis career and into his retirement. “We never really talked tennis,” Roddick said of the syndicated radio effort. “It was great for me as a training tool. I learned how to work a show clock and do the show prep and research. I had no experience, just a 20-minute meeting. They said go for it and put me on.”
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