Roddick's Never-Ending Train of Heartache

Andy Roddick takes to the lawns of Wimbledon to participate in a heated tennis epic. He wins the first set with a timely break in its last game, drops the second and third in tiebreaks, then rallies to take the fourth. He appears to hold the upper hand through much of the fifth, the misfortune of serving second notwithstanding. Break points to serve for the match come and go, however, and as the set proceeds deep into extra innings, cracks begin to appear in the once seemingly-impregnable armor of Roddick's service game. At last, one shaky service game sees Roddick broken for the first and only time in the match, and in the process, dismissed in heart-wrenching fashion from the tournament which now stands as the holy grail of his long and compelling career.
A fortnight ago, the preceding text would have appeared quite a specific summary of Roddick's last appearance at Wimbledon 2009. In the aftermath of his 2010 campaign, however, it remains intact to its last word; lightning has struck the same place twice. On a much smaller stage and against a much lesser foe, America's finest practitioner of the tennis game met with the same tragic fate for a second consecutive year.
Like many fans, I have grown increasingly fond of Andy Roddick over the years as his surpassing dedication, persistence, and reverence for the game have shown through. For all his faults, I count him a credit to the game and a sentimental favorite. It is a truly devastating thing, then, the relentless train of heartache that his Grand Slam career has come to represent. I see a man of character and conviction, a fighter possessed of seemingly endless resilience, and yet one who always falls just short of his goal, always clutching at the prize and never quite able to grasp it.
It would seem that Roddick is but a hair too thoughtful, that in the decisive moments, he fails to truly go forth and seize the day, preferring instead to wait for victory to fall in his lap, and that he thus all too often sees it snatched from his hands by an emboldened foe. Is he truly doomed to this lot in his career, or will he at last break free and achieve at least the one final moment of uncompromised glory that could at once atone for all the suffering of the last seven years? Time will tell; until it does, I will continue suffering along with America's beleaguered champion.