Andy Roddick lavished praise on
Aryna Sabalenka for her performance at the 2024 Australian Open as the former World No.1 was utterly dominant in making it back-to-back in Melbourne. She successfully defended her title by defeating Zheng Qinwen in the final and did not drop a single set.
Roddick spoke on his opening episode of his podcast, 'Served with Andy Roddick' and shushed the doubters that disparaged the Belarusian especially in relation to her serve and admitted himself that he had doubts but the way she has got over it needs marvelling at.
"We have to talk about Aryna Sabalenka and the women 's draw and what she did, and I want to give her so much props. We kind of become victims of the moment, we say, 'Well, Sabalenka we all knew when she was 19 since she was, you know, bigger and stronger than everyone'. Like, shut up," the American said.
"You know, all of us had doubts. All of us had doubts. And if you try to forget the part where she had full blown serving yips and would have it caused this kind of snowball effect of panic, mental insecurity. I think when you're on the court. And to go through an offseason and clinically deconstruct a serve, come back, have a counting mechanism and then we haven't even seen parts of it. Right," he continued.
."Like we still see Zverev, who's battled with it and he'll throw in a double fault where he's all. He's been fine for 2 hours, and then there's 2 doubles, but they missed by 5 feet. We haven't had that. That thing from Sabalenka, you know, in a long time."
"And so to get over those mental hurdles to become what she's become, all of us that criticized her need to eat poop right now because she has. Absolutely come through it and been amazing. It is a testament to mental fortitude and work. It didn't happen by accident. She absolutely worked at it and deserves these successes."
