Sniff, sniff .

. . chronicles of Roddick: the epitaph . . . The diarist observed a minute's silence when Andy Roddick finally bowed out of the business of tennis and, more importantly for yours truly, the business of tennis anecdotes. Thankfully he left a few things in the can for us to remember him by.

After a round of applause in the interview room, one hack brought up an episode when he was 17 years old and being mobbed by fans at Delray Beach, one of whom asked him to sign her bosom. "I had never seen a boob before, to be honest," he said.

His post-match press conference provided enough quotes to fill a slim volume, a seminal moment in American journalism on a par with Woodward and Bernstein.

Serving out his last game against Juan Martin del Potro with tears welling in his eyes, was he losing it? "Yeah, literally losing it," he said. "I almost got broken."

He had then tried, unsuccessfully, to 'bottle' the emotion on court at that moment. "I was trying," he said. "It was challenging."

Unlike Andre Agassi, who had a speech prepared, Roddick meandered through an off-the-cuff, rather shambolic few minutes on court. "I didn't think of it [preparing some remarks]," he said. "I probably should have."

After so many big matches in Arthur Ashe, surely he couldn't remember the first time he was in there. "I hit in it when I was a junior, warmed [Carlos Moya] up. But I played Slava Dosedel in 2001, won 6-4, 6-2, 6-1, so yes."

It turns out Roger Federer isn't such a perfectionist after all. The No.1 seed crashed out to Tomas Berdych in the early hours of yesterday morning, the big Czech understandably taking umbrage about comparisons with Lukas Rosol beating Rafa Nadal at Wimbledon.

"I just hope you're not comparing me with Rosol," said Berdych, glowering at his prey. "You did. You just said there was a bit of an upset and Rosol beat Nadal and then you mentioned my match here."