INDIANAPOLIS - Andy Roddick pounded 16 aces with a serve that reached 135 mph and routed Paradorn Srichaphan 7-6 (2), 6-4 to win the RCA Championships on Sunday.
The top-seeded Roddick won his third title of the season, each on a different surface: at St. Poelten on clay in May, at Queen's Club on grass in June, and at Indianapolis on hard courts.
Roddick also improved to 15-1 with coach Brad Gilbert, who used to work with Andre Agassi. They teamed up after Roddick lost in the first round of the French Open.
While Roddick has toned down his on-court demeanor since pairing with Gilbert, the world's sixth-ranked player let his emotions show quite a bit Sunday.
Ahead 4-3 in the first set, Roddick screamed and smacked the ball high into the air after a sponsorship sign fell and wiped out a rally. Paradorn, who was seeded second, won the next two points to get to 4-4.
Then, leading 5-4, Roddick stirred up the crowd by arguing with the chair umpire when he thought a serve by Paradorn was wide. Roddick knocked his racket on the court and yelled at the umpire. umpire. He ended up losing the game to make it 5-all.
But Roddick, a semifinalist at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, wound up ending the tiebreaker with an ace.
He made relatively quick work of Paradorn in the second set, losing just one point in his final four service games of the match. That point was a double-fault in the last game, but he quickly recovered with an ace and a service winner to end it.
Roddick finished with a 37-12 edge in winners and notched his third victory against the Thai overall.
It was the third time in the RCA Championships' 16-year history that the final featured the top two seeded players. In 1992, No. 2-seeded Pete Sampras beat No. 1 Jim Courier; in 1996, No. 1 Sampras beat No. 2 Goran Ivanisevic.
-- July 27, 2003 AP