Kohlschreiber performed like a great, says Roddick
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Andy Roddick was stunned at the level of performance shown by Philipp Kohlschreiber when the German won their Australian Open thriller which finally ended in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The sixth-seeded American hit a career-best 42 aces but still lost 6-4 3-6 7-6 6-7 8-6 as 29th seed Kohlschreiber produced a barrage of winners, especially on his backhand, to reach the fourth round.
"If you look at the stats, and you look at my first-serve percentages, 42 aces, three double-faults, 79 winners, 24 errors, I don't know," a non-plussed Roddick told reporters.
"Tonight he played like a great player. I took his best stuff for five sets and I thought I was going to get him to break or fold. I thought if I kept him on long enough that would happen.
"It's rough. You play a match that long, you come out the wrong end, it doesn't feel good. It's not fun."
Kohlschreiber, who came into the event with a career-high ranking of 27, equaled his best grand-slam performance.
"'Pretty good'" is an understatement," said the American. "I don't know I've ever seen him play like that before, especially serving-wise. It's unfortunate.
"You show me what serve he wasn't hitting tonight, what serve he was favoring."
Roddick got angry with umpire Emmanuel Joseph for a series of decisions, in the fourth set especially, but the sixth seed said the spats were irrelevant to the outcome.
"I don't think it had anything to do with it," he said. "I came out and served aces after I got mad.
"If anything I needed something to get inside of me. It was a long time between me talking to the umpire and when the match actually finished."
Roddick could not think of anything different he would have tried with the benefit of hindsight.
"I guess there's something you could always think you would do differently or maybe I'll just make something up to make myself feel better," he said.
"Bottom line is it was pretty high tennis from both of us."
(Editing by Tony Jimenez)
