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Serena does it to get under my skin: Roddick

— Photo: AFP

BLOWING A FUSE: A malfunctioning Hawk-Eye simulator was the object of Tomas Berdych’s fury on Sunday.

MELBOURNE: Andy Roddick has laughed off his loss to Serena Williams 16 years ago, saying he was just a skinny 10-year-old while she was “bench-pressing dump trucks.”

Serena said in a lighter vein this week — and she has included this fact in her website — that her triumph over Roddick when they were pre-teens training together in Florida was one of her greatest wins.

“Any chance she gets, she just does it to get under my skin, and she does it very successfully,” said Roddick, after his fourth round win on Sunday. “She forgets to mention that it was 1993.”

He said they laughed about it on court on Saturday as Serena sat him down to list the male players she has indirectly beaten by winning against Roddick.

“When we were 10, I had to literally run around in the shower to get wet,” he said. “She was bench-pressing dump trucks already at that time.”

Roddick also disputed Serena’s recollection of the score, which she says was 6-1. “She’s good at not letting the truth get in the way of a good story sometimes,” he said, smiling. “I think it was 6-4.”

He said he never played against Venus because she was “way too good.” He is proud of the success they have enjoyed since their Delray Beach (Florida) days.

“We just spent hours and hours out there just playing,” Roddick said. “We all have done pretty well, and all three of those little kids out there got to No. 1, which is pretty cool.”

Failing to deliver

The electronic line-calling system at Rod Laver Arena failed Czech player Tomas Berdych on Sunday, leading him to add his voice to the growing opposition over the Hawk-Eye simulator.

“I mean, if they bring some new system and it doesn’t work, why should it be on the courts?” Berdych asked after the simulator was unable to offer an opinion on a line call during his fourth-round match against Roger Federer.

Heavy shadows over the line apparently left the system unable to determine the ball’s landing. As a result, the original out call had to stand. “I don’t care about officials, I just want to see my ball,” an angry Berdych told the umpire when the simulation did not appear on the screen.

Berdych lost that point, and went on to lose the match in five sets.

The Hawk-Eye technology reconstructs the ball’s most likely path by combining its trajectory using images from the cameras. Hawk-Eye does not reproduce what actually happened, but what was statistically most likely to have happened.

Federer has long opposed the system, and Sunday’s incident affirmed his doubts. “It’s horrible. I don’t like it,” he said. “Tomas doesn’t like it since today. Finally, one guy understood.”

He said the Hawk-Eye could be useful — “If it’s 9-all in the fifth set, you got to use it and there’s a terrible call because the linesperson was sleeping and the umpire was drinking coffee, of course then it’s good to have it.”

But you don’t win or lose a match on the challenges, Federer said. “You have four eyes looking at every line. You could really mess up,” he said. “Yeah, the ball Tomas was questioning was out. But still, with a system like this in place it shouldn’t happen, right? That could be the crucial moment for Tomas.”

Still not there

Women’s No. 1 Jelena Jankovic said it takes time for her to get on top of her game at the beginning of a new season. That would explain her straight set loss to 2007 Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli.

“I’m a kind of player who needs a little bit of time to get used to it, to get the routine playing matches and get the confidence,” she said. “Then only I feel I can do whatever I want on court. At the moment I’m still not there.”

“Maybe it (No. 1 ranking) will change, but that’s not important; it’s about the whole year,” she said. “The most important thing is how you finish, not how you begin.” — AP

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