Andy Roddick Will Retire After 2012 U.S. Open

Right after Andy Roddick announced his impending retirement on ESPN on Thursday, the ESPN crew of tennis personalities quickly attempted to digest and react to the news. They did a good job overall -- Patrick McEnroe, who has worked with Roddick extensively through the years, kept it together, while Mary Joe Fernandez perhaps struggled a bit -- but they tossed around one phrase that caught my wife’s attention: hall of famer. Her first reaction: “Hall of famer? What has he won?”

Tennis is an incredibly cruel sport in so many ways. When you break down mentally, there is absolutely no place to hide. You cannot lean on or hide behind a teammate. You cannot call timeout, at least not without faking an injury. You cannot sit the bench for a while. You have to continue going out onto the court and breaking down in front of hundreds or thousands of people (and sometimes a Duchess). And at the same time, you are judged mostly on your titles. Other sports have all-pro or all-conference teams, where the five (or 22) best players get recognized for their greatness. But in tennis, as in golf, the second-best is often forgotten.