While the basketball world has been fixated on the 2025 NBA Finals, another major sporting event was held on Sunday. Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner in the longest-ever final of the French Open in a clash that lasted five hours and 29 minutes. That marathon of a match prompted former tennis player Andy Roddick to make an interesting claim on the Quick Served with Andy Roddick podcast.
“This isn’t to say one thing doesn’t mean you’re throwing shade at someone else,” Roddick said. “I’m celebrating and applauding one set of athletes. An NBA game is 48 minutes played in air conditioning, where you have teammates, halftime, timeouts, the whole thing. Communication.
“I think tennis players are the best athletes in the world,” Roddick continued. “The more I watch it, the more I think it.”
Roddick, a former World No. 1, understood that he was going to get some pushback for the take. The 42-year-old acknowledged that tennis players don’t get hit on the head and whatnot, but still believes the sport provides the ultimate test.
“You have to be strong, fast, mentally resilient,” Roddick stated. “You have to be able to basically do sprint intervals while also using hands. It’s just the most complete examination of an athlete that I can think of.”
You can make an argument that some of the very best tennis players in the world would be in the discussion for best athlete. Alcaraz is a great shout, while Novak Djokovic and the now-retired Rafael Nadal would have had strong cases when they were at the peak of their powers. It was almost inhuman how Djokovic and Nadal could slug it out even after being on the court for hours.
All that said, you can’t really diminish NBA stars when it comes to athleticism. Sure, they get to play in air-conditioned arenas, and there are a lot of stoppages, but they have to exert a tremendous amount of energy when they are playing. They are also constantly battling against other big, strong, and fast athletes.
It takes a lot out of a player to play all 24 minutes of a half, let alone the entire game. Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick played the same five players for the entire second half of Game 4 of their first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Those players looked gassed in the closing stages of the game and understandably so.
Roddick, who won the US Open in 2003, made it clear he wasn’t trying to diss athletes of other sports, but he was wrong to be as dismissive of NBA stars as he was.
