Pointed Magazine

If there is one thing to be said about being the number one seed in a tourament, just ask Tomas Zib, as he faced a very impressive performance from Andy Roddick today at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic

Roddick fired off 18 aces and beat Tomas Zib 6-4, 6-2 to reach the third round where he will take on 15th-seeded Radek Stepanek or Rockville, Md., native Paul Goldstein, who reached the second round Tuesday by beating Somdev Dev Varman 6-4, 6-2.

Some fans had to look closely at some of the serves by Roddick as they routinely hit 130mph on several occasions and made Zib look twice as some of the balls hit in play and were unreturnable by the time Zib went after them. Roddick commented on where he was at his best tonight.

The serve "was the only shot I was really hitting in the first set," said Roddick, who said earlier this week that his serve needed to improve before the U.S. Open. "I was hitting aces, hitting good first serves and they weren't coming back. I was really pleased with my serve tonight."

Roddick joked about liking Washington in comparison to him losing last week in Indianapolis. He also talked about getting some of the good food that Georgetown has to offer.

"Fortunately there are a lot more options at 8 o'clock in Georgetown than at 1 o'clock in the morning in Indianapolis," said Roddick.

The biggest story of the day came in the first match when John Isner, who led Georgia to an unbeaten season and the NCAA championship in May, toppled the tournament's 2003 champion Tim Henman, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).

The 6-foot-9 Isner, who was granted a wild-card entry after Fernando Gonzalez withdrew, called the victory "a dream come true" and placed it second to Georgia's NCAA title on the hierarchy of his life's athletic achievements.

"I might have caught him on an off day," Isner said of Henman. "He hasn't been playing that much. He's a great champion. Beating somebody of his caliber at a tournament like this has got to be right up there."

Henman gave Isner his props for a great match and hitting just the right shots to defeat him.

"It's always going to be decided by so few points when you're playing a guy of that nature, who's got a great serve," Henman said. "You just sort of try and bide your time and do a good job holding your own serve. For the most part I was able to do that. You can't really give away too many opportunities on your serve because he's capable of serving that well for a long period of time."