The last American men to win a Grand Slam title Andy Roddick recently got accepted for a position at Tennis Channel, and he seems to have a busy schedule amid the lockdowns in the US.
During his Friday’s session at Tennis Channel, the most-discussed topic ‘the GOAT debate’ was talked upon. The American revealed his list of players.
However, he didn’t a have particular order to it and said, “I can’t go in order.” During the conversation, he also shot a few questions, which were, “who is Serena going to replace? And who is Novak going to replace?”
On the men’s side, he placed Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Rod Laver, and Pete Sampras on his GOAT list.
“I felt like a bad person” – Andy Roddick on taking out Bjorn Borg from the list.
He was not comfortable in eliminating Bjorn Borg from the list. Borg won 11 major tiles and retired from the sport at the age of 26. Roddick said, “it felt horrible. I felt like a bad person, to take Borg out of the top-10 list. I won’t be able to look at him, I won’t be able to shake his hand. The guy is the coolest person, who has ever lived, but he is not in my top-10 list and I feel terrible,” he said.
And on the WTA roster, Serena Williams, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, and Steffi Graf were part of his list.
He further justified why he took the 24-time Grand Slam champion Margaret Court out from his top-10 column. “I took Margaret Court out. I know that it might not be well received. She is the all-time Slam leader. It does give a significance, she won seven Australian Opens. But a lot those were when nobody was there,” Andy Roddick explained.
To add-on to Andy’s justification, Court won her first Slam in 1960, which was during the amateur tour. And when the Open Era tennis began in 1968, she won 11 more major titles.