Focused: Roddick wants victories, not attention

In Andy Roddick's ideal world, he could take his dog for a walk in the morning, as he did in Ohio two days before his final U.S. Open tuneup, and not worry about being stopped by strangers.

Or if he was, they would coo over his year-old English bulldog, Billie Jean, who was named after the pioneering tennis player and has never met a person she would not let rub her belly.

"I don't mind being bothered, because it's all part of my livelihood," Roddick said. "But I don't need the attention."

Roddick, 26, was a celebrity before he was a star, so maybe it is no surprise that he prefers opening the window on his world just a crack, in 140-character updates on Twitter.

"I like it because it's an avenue to kind of reach out and share as much as you want," he said.

Even more than how to solve the riddle that is Roger Federer, the world No. 1, who has defeated him in 19 of their 21 meetings, this is the main conundrum of Roddick's career: how to draw attention with his tennis but not have it follow him home.

"Probably the best part of the last three years is I could kind of go about my business unbothered," Roddick said.

He comes into this year's Open seeded fourth, with the spotlight again nipping at his heels, his five-set loss to Federer at Wimbledon having rebooted his celebrity.

Roddick's agent, Donald Dell, gauged the winds of public opinion correctly in an e-mail message after Roddick fell to Federer 16-14 in the decisive fifth set. You may have lost the match, Dell wrote, but you won a nation.

At home in Austin, Texas, people at the local coffee shop suddenly wanted to talk tennis. Roddick tweeted about his mailman's delivering a personal message: If he had changed his sweat-soaked shirt, he might have beaten Federer.

In Ohio, people told Roddick how glad they were to see he was back, though he never left the top 10.

"I would be lying if I sat here and said I totally understood it," he said, referring to the outpouring of support. "But it definitely made it easier to get motivated to get back on the court."

Roddick turned professional in 2001 when he was 18, his good lucks, gregarious personality and gasp-inducing serve feeding the hype.

The only player other than Federer to have won at least one tournament on the ATP Tour each of the past nine years, Roddick won the Open in 2003 and finished the year at No. 1.

Three years later, he came to the Open ranked 10th in the world, his lowest standing since 2002, when he became the youngest American since Michael Chang to crack the top 10. Amid talk that he was washed up, he advanced to the final, losing in four sets to Federer.

Roddick said he felt as if he were trapped in a reality show, growing into adulthood with cameras in his face and dozens of directors in his ear. Everybody had an opinion on the way he should act and the changes he needed to make to his game, and the cacophony drowned out his interior voice.

"I think I used to get more up and down on an individual result or two," he said. "I maybe used to be convinced after two bad weeks that it was going to fall apart forever or after two good weeks that I'd probably never play a bad match again." He added, "I think maybe I have a little more confidence in the process than I used to."

Larry Stefanki, whom Roddick hired last year as his coach, has elevated his confidence while helping him tune out all the outside voices. Dell said that Roddick's marriage this year to Brooklyn Decker, a model, also had a salutary effect.

"I think she's made him a warmer, happier person," Dell said.

In Roddick's first tournament after Wimbledon, in Washington, he lost in the final, in a third-set tiebreaker, to Argentine Juan Martin del Potro, 20. Knowing how hard defeats are for Roddick to absorb, Dell found Decker in the players' lounge afterward and said: "Geez, I'm really sorry. I know he's going to be discouraged after this one."

Decker, he said, replied: "No, I just talked to him. He'll be fine." Dell listened in on Roddick's postmatch news conference and was struck by his upbeat demeanor.

Day 1 at the U.S. Open

• SURFACE: Hard courts.

• SITE: The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.

• TODAY'S SCHEDULE: Day 1; play starts on all courts at 11 a.m.

• TODAY'S TOP MEN'S MATCHES: No. 1 Roger Federer vs. Devin Britton, No. 5 Andy Roddick vs. Bjorn Phau, No. 12 Robin Soderling vs. Albert Montanes, No. 21 James Blake vs. Ruben Ramirez.

• TODAY'S TOP WOMEN'S MATCHES: No. 2 Serena Williams vs. Alexa Glatch, No. 3 Venus Williams vs. Vera Dushevina, No. 22 Daniela Hantuchova vs. Meghann Shaughnessy, Kim Clijsters vs. Viktoriya Kutuzova.

• TODAY'S FORECAST: Sunny. High temperature of 76 degrees.

• 2008 MEN'S SINGLES CHAMPION: Roger Federer of Switzerland.

• 2008 WOMEN'S SINGLES CHAMPION: Serena Williams of the United States.

• LAST YEAR: Each singles final was delayed a day because of rain. Federer beat Andy Murray 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 for a fifth-straight U.S. Open title. Williams won her third U.S. Open championship -- the first since 2002 -- by beating Jelena Jankovic 6-4, 7-5.

• NEW THIS YEAR: Video-replay technology has been added to the Grandstand, giving the tournament three courts with electronic line-calling. Night sessions may have a men's match scheduled first, followed by a women's match; it has been the other way around in the past.

• KEY STATISTIC: 34 -- consecutive U.S. Open matches won by Federer. He is bidding to win a sixth consecutive title at the American Grand Slam tournament, something that hasn't been done by anyone since Bill Tilden from 1920-25.

• PRIZE MONEY: Total of $21.6 million, with $1.6 million each to the men's and women's singles champions.

• TODAY'S TV: ESPN2 (1-6 p.m.; 7-11 p.m.), Tennis Channel (11 a.m. to 7 p.m.).

• ON THE WEB: The tournament's official site, which will stream matches live, is http://www.USOpen.org.