Andy Roddick is in night session action against Jack Sock at the US Open.
Cast your mind back to what you were doing at 18. And then think of the challenge awaiting the young Nebraskan Sock tonight. A year or so ago he made the headlines with his stirring run to win the junior title, now he's in the big time. He'll stride out to face former champion Andy Roddick on the towering Arthur Ashe stadium court in front of 23,000 spectactors and millions more on primetime TV.
However the teenager is impressively laid-back and appears to be taking the whole US Open experience in his stride. Despite being ranked well outside the top 500, he saw off veteran arc Gicquel 6-4, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in the opening round and has enough power off the court to pose Roddick a few problems if he can settle.
Roddick was reminiscing back to his first experience at Flushing Meadows back in 2000 when he lost to Spanish veteran Albert Costa after a tough struggle and he'll see plenty of that same youthful promise in the 6'1 Sock.
However the former champion will be looking to make a statement tonight as he was not too impressive at all during his opening round win over Michael Russell, narrowly avoiding being pushed to five sets. Roddick insists his expectations for the fortnight are rock bottom but he'll be hoping to have a shot at making the quarters and a convincing win will go a long way to convincing fans, opponents, pundits and most importantly himself, that he's capable of it this year.
