WIMBLEDON, England — In the depths of the Wimbledon press center, Ryan Harrison, a rising American teenager, was being asked after a loss to share the advice that his mentor Andy Roddick had been giving him about overcoming obstacles, controlling his emotions and making progress in the Darwinian world of the men’s tennis circuit.But while Harrison talked in his baritone voice Friday about the future, Roddick was clearly in need of some help of his own on Centre Court.
He had beaten Feliciano Lopez, the flashy but streaky 29-year-old Spanish left-hander, seven times in seven previous attempts, but this was a different Lopez: still hitting huge serves but keeping the freebies to a minimum, still self-aware but newly self-confident on the big points.
Roddick, enduring a deflating season at age 28, clearly does not cast as dark a shadow on the other side of the net at this awkward stage of his fine career. And though Roddick and many of those who have watched Lopez over the years kept waiting for him to crack, the only crack that came was the sound of another winner, another ace.
“He served about as well as someone has,” Roddick said. “You know the stuff that’s enabled me to beat him seven times, making passing shots under duress, making him play defense on his forehand, he did well today. Mixed up his serve. There weren’t a whole lot of patterns. So he played an outstanding match.”
Roddick, however, did not, and Lopez’s 7-6 (2), 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory was merely the latest major disappointment for Roddick at the tournament whose trophy he covets above all others. He has reached three finals here, losing to Roger Federer on all three occasions and never more painfully or poignantly than the last time in 2009, when he served into the late, late afternoon and ended up losing, 16-14, in the fifth set.
It was the match of Roddick’s life, and yet it did not produce a title, and he hardly seems closer to that title now. He was upset in the fourth round here last year by unseeded Yen-Hsun Lu and has now been upset in the third round by the unseeded Lopez, a second-tier player from Roddick’s own generation. Meanwhile, the four men now camped out at the top of the rankings — Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Andy Murray — keep hitting high notes that the rest of the choir cannot manage.
Roddick, no choirboy by nature, is understandably struggling with the reality. He was asked if, as the years and defeats go by, thoughts crept in that it might never happen for him here?
“Well, sure; you’re human; I mean, of course it does,” he said, turning his attention to his interlocutor. “You know, you may never get your favorite job either. No offense to your current employer.”
But Roddick is not prepared to stop chasing the dream even if it looks increasingly like just that: a dream. “What do you do?” he said. “You keep moving forward until you decide to stop. At this point I’ve not decided to stop, so I’ll keep moving forward.”
There was plenty of moving forward at the All England Club Friday, although the latest band of rain did halt progress on the outside courts again in the late afternoon.
Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria upset Vera Zvonareva, the No. 2 women’s seed and a finalist here last year, 6-2, 6-3, in the third round.
The talented Australian Bernard Tomic, an 18-year-old qualifier, reached the third round of the men’s event after overcoming a two-set deficit against Igor Andreev of Russia and finishing off his five-set victory in a match that was interrupted Thursday.
Tomic is the youngest member of a talented microgeneration that includes Harrison, Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Milos Raonic of Canada. But Tomic, with his iconoclastic game based more on intuition than power or eye-popping athleticism, is the only one to get through two rounds here.
Going deeper will require something special, because Tomic will face Robin Soderling, the No. 5 seed, in the third round,. Soderling had Friday off after defeating Tomic’s Australian elder Lleyton Hewitt on Thursday.
An even younger player, the 17-year-old British prospect Laura Robson, dealt surprisingly well with her high-profile match against Maria Sharapova in the second round Friday.
Robson has been on the national radar since winning the Wimbledon girls’ title in 2008 at age 14 and receiving her trophy in the royal box. Since then, she has sampled coaches, traveled the world and failed to set the senior game on fire. Ranked 254th, she played at Wimbledon after receiving a wild card and looked thoroughly in her element as she jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the opening set against Sharapova, who was struggling with her serve again.
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