Roddick’s sights are not as high

Anything past Round Four would please the third seed.

PARIS (AP) — Andy Roddick sets his sights lower at the French Open.

He’s accustomed to going to other Grand Slam tournaments with plans to stay until the late stages. On the clay of Roland Garros, where play begins today, the No. 3-seeded Roddick would be thrilled just to still be around for the fourth round.

“Different goals. Going into Wimbledon or the [U.S.] Open, it’s like, ‘OK, I’m looking to make a run to a final here,”’ Roddick said.

“And here, I want to make the second week. Then, if you get there, you kind of re-evaluate,” he continued. “But that’s something I haven’t done, and I feel like that’s a realistic goal that I’m going after right now.”

Roddick has reached two finals at the U.S. Open, winning the 2003 title. He’s made two finals at Wimbledon, too, and been a semifinalist twice at the Australian Open.

And at the French Open?

Early exits

He’s only once been as far as the third round, back in 2001. Since then, Roddick has two second-round losses and three first-round exits.

Red clay clearly presents problems, even if he’s had some good results on it elsewhere, including in the Davis Cup and a title at St. Poelten, Austria, in 2003.

Balls bounce higher and move more slowly on clay, giving opponents more time to react to Roddick’s best tools — his powerful serves and forehands.

“It’s challenging,” Roddick said, his backward-turned white baseball cap soaked with sweat and flecked with rust-colored spots after a practice session. “I want to get to the second week. I feel like, even though it is a challenging surface, it is something that I should have done.”

Roddick’s hardly the only American who has more trouble in Paris than at other majors. No U.S. man won the French Open between Tony Trabert in 1955 and Michael Chang in 1989, and Andre Agassi was the last to do it, in 1999.

Over the past three years, only one American man made it as far as the third round: James Blake last year.

“We don’t play on [clay]. That’s just the bottom line,” U.S. Davis Cup captain Patrick McEnroe said. “We don’t play on it when we’re kids. We don’t grow up on it.”