32-title-winning Tennis champ throws away his trophies
Former World number one and 32-title-winning Tennis player Andy Roddick threw away nearly all of his trophies except the one from his first win at the 2003 US Open, his wife has revealed. "He decided that these don't mean success to me, these don't define me and I don't really care to have these material things" she added.
Andy Roddick may have been the most decorated American men?s tennis player of his generation, but good luck finding the silverware to show for it.Roddick?s wife, Brooklyn Decker, said the former world No1 decided to throw away nearly all of his trophies during a recent cleaning spree at the couple?s home in Austin, Texas.?We have his US Open trophy,? Decker told People magazine in an interview published on Wednesday. ?But all his other trophies Andy threw away in the garbage.?Roddick was 21 when he shot to stardom with his breakthrough win at Flushing Meadows in 2003 ? still the last major singles title won by an American man ? and finished that season atop the ATP rankings. His abrupt retirement during the 2012 US Open left the United States without an active men?s grand slam champion for the first time in 129 years, since the inception of what then was called the US National Championships.While Roddick never managed to win a second grand slam championship despite reaching four more finals (and losing to Roger Federer in each of them), the outspoken Texan won 32 titles and spent nearly a decade in the top 10 during a 12-year professional career that will see him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame later this month.?It was really upsetting,? Decker said of Roddick?s shock decluttering. ?He did it one day when I was out of town. [He] decided that these don?t mean success to me, these don?t define me and I don?t really care to have these material things sitting around the house, so he threw them in the trash. I think he saved a few but they are not on display.?The 34-year-old Roddick, who has done occasional TV work in retirement for Fox Sports 1 and the BBC, is the founder and chair of an eponymous foundation with the goal of helping at-risk youth. He and Decker, who married in 2009, welcomed their first child, Hank, in September 2015. 