I will miss you Roddick.

  "Wow ... For the first time in my career, I'm not sure what to say."

-Roddick's response when asked to speak to the crowd following his last match

Roddick acknowledges the crowd in New York after his 4th round loss to Juan Martin Del Potro

American Andy Roddick retired from professional tennis yesterday, a week after his 30th birthday. What better placed to say goodbye than on the courts of Flushing Meadows where "A-Rod" won his first and only Grand Slam title - the 2003 US Open on his 21st birthday.

Roddick's career will go down as a great one but, unfortunately, not a super one. He won 32 ATP tournaments and was ranked number one in the world for a time back in 2003. Then came along the likes of Roger Federer and later, Del Potro, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal. Roddick was good enough to maintain his top 10 world ranking for the best part of a decade, however for a large part of his career he remained stuck behind those players, always on the cusp of star status.

Roddick's 21st birthday present

However, he never gave up, reaching numerous finals over a twelve year professional career, and 10 Grand Slam semi finals. If it was not for Federer, Roddick would have won Wimbledon. Perhaps even multiple times. He reached four finals at the grass courts in London, only to finish runner-up each time to the Swiss genius. The 2009 staging of the event will go down in history as arguably the best ever Wimbledon final, with Federer overcoming Roddick 16-14 in the 5th set. To this day, it remain the longest ever Grand Slam final match played.

There are two things Roddick will be missed for: his frequent, fast-serving aces and personality. In 2004, Roddick served at 249 kilometres per hour (155 miles per hour), which was a world record at the time, and remained the fastest ever serve up until last year. He still holds the record for the fastest serve in US Open history - a 244 km/h blast.

Roddick will also be missed for his witty responses to the media and on court antics. In the 2011 China Open, Roddick was asked by a reporter who he thought would retire first: him or Roger Federer. Roddick responded: "I think that you should retire." During a 2008 Australian Open match, he launched a tirade of abuse towards the chair umpire: "Do you have ears? Connected to your head? Use them." He later asked the umpire if dropping out of school was part of being an umpire: "I think you quit school before you were ten," then told the children in the crowd to stay in school otherwise they would become an umpire.

It is sad that Andy, who dominated American men's tennis up until his retirement, will never grace the tennis courts again, but his legacy will live on in young Americans who were inspired by his style of play.

Roger exits the court after his most recent loss

On a side note, Roger Federer's quarterfinal exit yesterday to Tomas Berdych, the first time he has failed to reach the semi finals of the US Open in 9 years, makes me wonder if the all-time leading Grand Slam winner's career is reaching an end. He is still ranked number one in the world, but has only triumphed once in the majors the last two years, and lost convincingly to Andy Murray in the London Olympics final last month. Federer is 31 years old, one year older than Roddick. Roddick's main reason for retirement was that he did not think he could give tennis 100 percent every time he hit the court and felt this was disrespectful to the great game. I am not in any way saying that this is the case with Federer, but when Federer does decide to retire, he will do so with the same respect that Roddick did. I only hope that, like Roddick did for 12 years, the "Fed Express" continues to entertain us for many more years.