• What the Deuce

Not just a one-trick pony

Andy Roddick won the 29th title of his career in Miami © Getty Images

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• Profile: Andy Roddick

For many people, Andy Roddick is everything Roger Federer is not. While Federer is the modest champion, who exhibits a unique combination of power and grace, A-Rod is the big-hitting, loud-mouthed American.

Roddick's greatest weapon is undoubtedly his serve. He holds the record for the world's fastest serve at an astonishing 155mph. But as he won his 29th career title at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, it was his versatility that stood out as he employed a range of tactics to win his second title of the year.

Rather than powering his way through to the final at Key Biscayne, Roddick demonstrated a diverse array of performances in a tactical masterclass worthy of Andy Murray. While the stats will say that Roddick hit 45 aces and dropped just a single set on his way to victory, on closer inspection, it is a very different story.

After two relatively straightforward matches in the early rounds against Russia's Igor Andreev and Sergiy Stakhovsky, it was in the last-16 against Germany's Benjamin Becker that Roddick was required to produce something a little different.

The big-serving American was outserved by Becker, who served 11 aces to Roddick's eight. The final scoreline, 7-6(4) 6-3, may look like a reasonably clinical result for Roddick, but the American No. 1 had to recover from a calamitous start. Trailing 1-4 and 0-40 down on his serve, Roddick demonstrated impressive mental toughness to battle through to the quarter-finals, hitting a trademark ace to seal the victory.

Next up was Spain's Nicolas Almagro and Roddick had something else up his sleeve. Roddick played the counter-punch game, waiting for Almagro to make the mistakes. Roddick made just ten unforced errors, and dropped just 11 points in nine service games as he played it safe to pencil a nice, clean scoreline 6-3 6-3 and move into the semi-finals.

"I felt like I played pretty clean today," he said after the match. "Also, he's a guy who takes lots of risk himself. So you can keep it low because he's the one kind of trying to hit the lines and being the aggressor. So I played within the margins today, and hit it well."

Rafael Nadal was his semi-final opponent, and the former No. 1 had been in ominous form all week. To sit back and allow Nadal to play his own game would be suicidal, and Roddick had to take the game to the six-time Grand Slam champion.

Roddick has one of the fastest serves in the men's game © Getty Images

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Roddick had only beaten Nadal once in five meetings since 2004 and he knew he would have to take a gamble. Roddick described his exhausting ultra-aggressive approach as 'like driving into head-on traffic'. But it paid dividends.

"My comfort zone of moving the ball around and maybe chipping it around a little bit doesn't work against Rafa," he said. "I had to try to come up with something that at least took him out of his comfort zone a little bit, and it paid off."

With arguably the hardest test out of the way, Roddick was just one match away from his first Masters title since 2006. But as he learnt in Indian Wells a fortnight previously, it does not pay to underestimate your lower-ranked opponents. World No. 26 Ivan Ljubicic overcame Roddick to deny him his first Indian Wells title, and he was not going to let Tomas Berdych make it two fruitless finals in a row.

Berdych had already seen off Roger Federer, Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling. But for a third straight match Roddick was well prepared for what was to come, and executed his gameplan to perfection.

Against Nadal it was aggressive, unrelenting. In the final, Roddick produced an impressive mix of attack and defence, of big serves and counter-punch tennis. He proved to his opponents that he is not just a one-trick pony, that he has the tactical shrewdness and a diverse array of match play.

At 27, Roddick is no spring chicken and he seems to have been around forever. But in Miami he issued a timely reminder that you simply cannot write him off. A constant presence in the top ten for the best part of a decade, the American is showing no signs of fading just yet.

As the tennis circus moves to the European clay courts, Roddick is in impressive form and will take a great deal of confidence from his performance in Miami. However, it is five years since Roddick last won a tournament on clay, and 2003 was the last time that the American won a clay-court event in Europe.

Of his 29 career titles, 19 have been won on hard courts, but what his statistics also reveal is that Roddick doesn't travel well. Only nine of his career victories have been won away from American soil.

Having said that, he has three titles from Queen's and last year he was thwarted by Federer in the final at Wimbledon for the third time in his career, missing out on his second Grand Slam in a thrilling five-setter.

After battling his way through hip and knee injuries last year, Roddick is in good shape. He is serving well, but he also has a whole new side to his game. Could this be the year he really gets to grips with the European summer?

While Federer is the outstanding favourite, Roddick is the perennial dark horse - he cannot be written off.

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