"As if I got upset because it was a female umpire" - Andy Roddick gives reality check to media-driven narrative in sports with fascinating anecdote

Andy Roddick recently recounted a story where Christine Brennan, a British sports columnist, had wrongly tried to frame a narrative surrounding his purported disrespect of a female umpire during a match. The American told the anecdote while illustrating a larger point that journalists often take half-baked quotes in an attempt to come up with sensationalist angles for readers.

Roddick enjoyed a 12-year-long career, the majority of which he spent as a top singles player. With one Major title, an overall 32 ATP singles to his name, and 13 weeks as the World No. 1 to his name, he eventually retired from pro tennis at the 2012 US Open.

Since his retirement, Andy Roddick has mostly worked as an analyst, while also regularly bringing his talents to good use on his "Served with Andy Roddick" podcast. In this week's episode of his podcast, the 42-year-old reminisced about how he had been in hot water with the media following a match against Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic, where he had been embroiled in an argument with a female umpire.

During his press conference afterwards, prominent journalist Christine Brennan tried to probe the American on the above incident, but the latter admittedly felt back then that she was trying to paint a narrative of him being at odds with only female umpires.

"I got [in] trouble one year with, not trouble, but kinda see where it was going, you'll get like, the person who already has their story written about your or about something to do with you," Andy Roddick told his fellow host Jon Wertheim on the latest episode of his podcast. "And they'll come in and ask questions, and they'll re-ask the question because they need a certain type of quote from you to finish their story." "And the one that I remember, Christine Brennen one year I snapped against Tipsarevic, or it was a different meltdown. But basically, I got into an argument with a female umpire, right? And then you can already tell that her story was written that, she was trying to make it as if I got upset because it was a female umpire, that I acted differently. I'm sitting there going, she asked two questions that I kind of not even avoid, because literally what she was was insinuating was 1000% wrong. And so I finally said, 'Chrissie, I know the story you're trying to write here.'"

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Andy Roddick: "You can kind of feel sometimes who is going after what story"

During the interaction, Andy Roddick further narrated his side of the story, where he told the above journalist that while she was well within her rights to come up with a narrative against him, it was pertinent that she include the facts while reporting it as well.

"I go, 'But be sure to include the fact that I've embarassed myself many, many times arguing with male umpires, and this might be the first time in my entire career that I've argued with a female umpire. So, like, the scale and dataset doesn't support your article," Andy Roddick said. "So if you write it, someone else needs to write this part of our conversation.' So you can kind of feel sometimes who is going after what story, they already have it written."

Roddick, meanwhile, doesn't play much tennis nowadays, instead choosing to divert his attention to pickleball. The former World No. 1 participated in the third edition of the Pickleball Slam earlier in February, where he and Eugenie Bouchard came up short against the husband-wife duo of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.

Edited by pranavsethii