How Andy Roddick swapped his tennis racquet for a mic and served up a hit podcast

The National

2 days ago

When Andy Roddick launched his tennis podcast Served back in January 2024 with an episode recapping the Australian Open alongside the journalist, author and broadcaster Jon Wertheim, the American Hall-of-Famer was looking to just have some fun.
'I don't know that we thought it was going to really be anything, which was kind of a superpower,' Roddick told The National in an interview at Wimbledon last month. 'Because if you don't have any expectations, you're not really scared of anything.
'For me it's been great, because I'm a bit of a tennis nerd, and so when we can invite people on, I can ask them all the questions that I would never bother them with in private. So selfishly it's a nice little gig.'
It's shaping up to be not so little. It turns out lots of people enjoy listening to Roddick geek out over tennis. The former world No 1 quizzes his guests with such infectious passion and curiosity, you can easily forget he also happens to be a US Open champion and three-time Wimbledon finalist.
'He's sort of the Hall of Fame resume with the perspective of the common fan who is still asking questions,' is how his frequent co-host Wertheim describes him.
'I feel like he's always been, from when he was a teenager, he's always been very witty. And there's an element of self-deprecation that comes with it.
'He's very observant. He's good at communicating in plain speak. And he's sort of this mixture of … he sees the game through a fan's [eyes]. There's not this curse of expertise. He understands the fan's perspective, but also has this accumulated knowledge of having played in major finals.'
From the get-go, Roddick and Wertheim tackled all the hot topics dominating the tennis headlines, while delivering an episode every Tuesday covering the week gone by on tour.
Whether it's breaking down the doping cases of Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek, or discussing gender inequality in the sport, or scrutinising some of the bold claims made by the player association PTPA, Roddick rarely shied away from speaking his mind.
Together with Wertheim, producer Mike Hayden, techie Sean Wilcoxson, and Sophie Cabaniss, who is responsible for social media, Roddick created a podcast that filled a gap in the tennis media space, where someone with his level of expertise provided fresh takes on a weekly basis straight to people's smartphones.
'Here was kind of the general thought with producer Mike when we were looking at it – Earth pays attention to tennis eight weeks a year [during the Grand Slams], right? In unison. That's a lot of football field left,' explained Roddick.
'And there was really no place on a random Tuesday to go get a story told, or get an update on tournaments that you couldn't watch for time zone reasoning or anything else. So our idea was kind of try to attack that open space a little bit more and provide a little bit of continuity.
'Not something here, something there, but every Tuesday when you wake up, it'll be there. And if you care enough to listen to it, then great.
'We didn't think that we needed a studio, we didn't think we needed all of the things if the storytelling was good enough; whether it be first-person experience, or other people who were smarter coming on and giving us their time.'
A few episodes in, Roddick started inviting guests to join him on the show, initially bringing in former players he has a good relationship with, like Kim Clijsters, James Blake, Lindsay Davenport, and Mardy Fish, coaches like Brad Gilbert, and agents like Max Eisenbud, who provided great insight into what it takes to manage the careers of superstars like Maria Sharapova, Li Na and Emma Raducanu.
He interviewed current players like Danielle Collins, Aryna Sabalenka, Madison Keys, and most recently Iga Swiatek, and had revealing, in-depth conversations with Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi.
'It was something that was largely ignored, that tennis coverage still largely centres around live rights. Those are expensive. It's not something that anyone with an opinion can do,' said Roddick.
'Meeting people where they're at, on the internet or on audio, is not expensive. So it's something that could be done easily. So we were kind of in the camp of 'why not?'. And then we started, and kind of a couple people listened, then more people listened, and now more people listen.'
For years now, experts have claimed the sports podcast market is saturated and it's difficult for a new show to gain traction. Served with Andy Roddick is disproving that theory.
A year and a half in, it has climbed the Apple charts to become the No 1 tennis podcast in the United States, and in several other markets.
With 150,000 subscribers on YouTube, and another 150,000 followers on Instagram, Roddick's show is one of just two tennis podcasts currently ranked in the top 100 in sports on the US Apple charts.
'I think sports in general, people watch the actual competition less and less, but they care more and more about everything else in the community. So I think that was something we thought we were going to be tapping into,' said Wertheim.
Last December, it was announced that Served has partnered with Vox Media to handle the show's sales, marketing and distribution duties as part of a multi-year deal.
I think sports in general, people watch the actual competition less and less, but they care more and more about everything else in the community
Andy Roddick
Tennis can be a difficult sport to follow, given the ever-changing time zones and the fragmented TV rights deals that often require fans to pay for multiple subscriptions to watch the matches all year round. Even videos of match highlights can be geo-blocked on social media, making it even more frustrating for tennis aficionados.
Podcasts cut through all that, which makes it a medium perfectly suited for tennis, according to Wertheim. He also believes Roddick has an edge over many pundits because there isn't much preventing him from speaking his mind.
'When you're trying to get a coaching gig, you're not going to be as candid as you might otherwise. Andy, to his credit, there's no sacred cows. There's full transparency. If there's a conflict, he'll disclose it,' he said.
Roddick is not active on social media and only knows if a clip from the podcast has gone viral if a friend or his producer sends it to him. His philosophy on giving strong opinions on the podcast is that it must always come with context.
'My stance is, I think it's okay to, I don't want to say criticise, but to have an opinion on someone, as long as you tell the reason why, whatever it is, is hard. I think for a long time, tennis analysts have acted almost like it's too easy,' said Roddick.
'You don't want to be the player that walked uphill both ways to school. So if you have a criticism, say, this person's struggling, this pattern is hard, explain why. Why it's a struggle and how they can improve. Don't just say, this person's playing badly, I think that's generally lazy.'
Roddick's personal highlights so far have been interviewing Nadal and Agassi. With Nadal, he got into the nitty gritty details of how the Spaniard approached the matches with his two biggest rivals, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
'In terms of ball control, Novak is the best I ever played, and I ever saw,' Nadal told Roddick, explaining how there was less of a clear game plan against the Serb compared to his clashes with Federer.
Against the Swiss, Nadal said the strategy was both simple and obvious to anyone watching – he just relentlessly targeted Federer's backhand until it broke down.
'For me, he was making a little bit mistake against me at the beginning of his career that he was trying to play from his backhand again with topspin, so he gave me the chance to keep hitting forehands against his backhand,' said Nadal.
'At the end of his career he started to go in, taking more risk. He was playing, for me, honestly 2017, for a while, was the best level of his career. You felt like you were in his hands. He played very, very aggressive and his serve was so difficult to read.'
A beaming Roddick quickly jumped in and gushed about how Federer had the ability to hit seven different serves off of the same ball toss. That segment of the conversation alone amassed over 800,000 views on YouTube.
With Agassi, Roddick listened intently to his idol talk about his conflicted feelings about tennis.
'Let's just get to the heart of it: I never chose tennis, right from day one. News alert, the most controversial thing in my book came on page one that I hated tennis. I'm not making that up,' said Agassi.
'I saw what it did to my family, I saw what it did to relationships, it always meant too much, I always resented it. It didn't mean that I wasn't good at it, but you can be motivated through two things in your life: fear or love and it was fear that was driving me.'
In last week's episode, Roddick got freshly-crowned Wimbledon champion Swiatek to open up about her contamination case, detailing the exact moment she found out about her failed doping test and how it affected her emotional state for many months after she'd been cleared.
Roddick admits there isn't a concrete plan for the podcast moving forward as they continue to learn as they go.
'There are people I want to interview. Obviously, I want to sit down with Roger [Federer] and sit down with Serena [Williams], but I also think the timing has to be right for those things,' said Roddick of his vision for what's next.
'I'm confident those type of things will happen. Those are my favourite shows. Those are the ones I get nervous for. But I don't know. We'll see. We don't want to just be a show. We want to be a media company.'