HWSRU

Mornin. . . so how 'bout that Andy Roddick!

In one of the more interesting match-ups on clay, he took down countryman Mardy Fish not long ago at the Italian Open. You have to feel for Fish - if you're a Mardy fan, at any rate - because he had very little time to savor his first-round, third-set tiebreaker win over France's Michael Llodra before he was thrown onto the floor of the coliseum, where Roddick lay in wait, licking his chops.

Ultimately, Roddick surrendered just five games to Fish, one fewer than Roger Federer allowed Guillermo Canas in the next marquee match-up. This has me thinking that, once again, the story emerging in Rome is that of surface speed - in this case, the quickness of Rome's golden clay relative to the clay of, say, Monte Carlo or Hamburg. I'm eager to hear what Ray Stonada/Asad Raza (who'll be in Rome, blogging for Tennis.com) might have to say about this as the event unfurls.

Now, before you get your shorts all in a bunch over any perceived attempt to cheerlead here for Roddick, step back and consider who would be the greatest beneficiary of a faster court. Yep. The Mighty Fed. I had to laugh the other day when TMF was quoted as saying he was prepared to play four or five more sets after the Monte Carlo final (a two-set loss to his clay-court nemesis, He Who Shall Remain Unnamed). It was a comment that sounded suspiciously like a shot fired across the bow of HWSRU - a reference to Federer's fitness and, perhaps more importantly (if less obviously), his enthusiasm for clay-court combat with HWSRU.

This buoyancy bodes well for Federer. With any luck (although I'd take rather stake the prediction on faster courts) we may get another epic out of these two in Rome. Their 2006 five-set final, in which Federer held two match points before yielding, remains one of the rivalry-defining classics.

Furthermore, TMF suggested that he regrets that the five-set final format used in Rome until 2007 was abolished. This is a remarkable turnaround, given the furor created when Federer and HWSRU both immediately withdrew from Hamburg, which started the day after the 2006 Rome final, on the grounds that they were exhausted. The incident was an enormous blow to Hamburg, and an all-around fiasco.

In retrospect, and especially in light of TMF's remarks, I get the feeling that the Lords of Tennis threw out the baby with the bathwater on this one. In order to placate the Hamburg organizers and the players (sometimes, I'd swear their collective middle name is "Over-reaction"), and to apply balm to the alleged black eye the game suffered because of the controversy, the Rome final was reduced to best-of-three. So now everyone, including one of the principals in that 2006 barnburner, waxes sentimental over the glory days of. . . five-set finals in the shadow of the Foro Italico's towering marble statues.

The real problem, of course, is that Hamburg has become road kill in a game on a roll. So why kow-tow to it?