2003 US Open

Well, what would you say has been your most memorable five-setter as a coach or player?

Okay, my most memorable five-setter here, I'll go back to 2003 US Open semifinals.

I felt like Roddick was in great position against Nalbandian.

He had just played him in the finals a couple weeks before in Canada and absolutely destroyed the guy.

Just that little window in time where Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick were at the top of the game, and Juan Carlos Ferrero as well.

Uh, 2003 US Open.

Who he beat in that final.

Yeah.

But at that time, podcasting was not yet a viable media category, and Roddick was adamant that he wasn't going to follow the ATP tour around as a TV personality, having burnt out on the global travel schedule.

He was also struggling under the burden of carrying monikers like One Slam Wonder and The Last American Male to Win a Grand Slam that had stuck to him since his triumph at the 2003 US Open and his four subsequent losses in Grand Slam finals to Roger Federer.

Roddick, who won 32 tour-level singles titles and finished in the top 10 of the ATP rankings for nine straight years, raking in more than $20 million in career prize money, says, "...TV is not something I thought I would ever do.

Back then it was hard for me to negotiate the mental gymnastics of convincing myself to go sit in the commentary box when I knew I could probably still be out there playing." Instead, Roddick retreated from public view.

But for the top American men, like, this is their window, this is their moment, this is their opportunity, and I felt even...

I felt that strongly even going into day number one, but now with Djokovic out of the draw, like, it's just, if it's ever going to happen for the American men, and maybe hopefully we have a lot of international listeners who are like, "Well, why does that matter?" Well, it does matter because for a sport that has one of the four majors who have not produced a champion since Andy Roddick back at the 2003 US Open, that's too long for the resources we have available to us, and the opportunity has presented itself here in New York, and boy, what it would mean if that happened.

Like, the, the resulting hoopla that would follow.

Maybe you get a Fritz- Tiafoe, a Fritz-Shelton, like, a Fritz-Tommy final as well because it really could happen.