Revitalised Roddick sets sights on Davis Cup

VIENNA, Oct 13 (Reuters) Now that his game is back on track, Andy Roddick is setting his sights on helping the United States to win the Davis Cup in 2007.

A drop in form earlier this year had many observers dismissing him as a top contender. By engaging Jimmy Connors as his coach and doing some rigorous training, Roddick dramatically turned things around after his straight-sets loss to Andy Murray in the third round at Wimbledon.

He reached the Indianapolis final and then won Cincinnati, beating Murray along the way. He reached the final of the US Open, losing to Roger Federer in four sets.

''It was certainly a little bit frustrating,'' said Roddick of being written off. ''Earlier this year I had a rough stretch and I was reading I'd never make it back into the top five and stuff like that. I definitely took that a little personally and decided to right the ship pretty quickly.

''It was just hard work that did it. Obviously, Jimmy coming on board, I don't think he played a small part in it. And it was just stuff I was already doing. I was saying all year it just takes a little bit for something to click and it did, luckily in Cincinnati and at the U.S. Open. I was thankful for that.'' GOOD FRIENDS Roddick, now the world number six, took on eight-times grand slam champion Connors as his coach in July.

Having recently lost both his Davis Cup matches as the US went down 3-2 to Russia in the semi-finals, conceding 17-15 in the fifth set to Dmitry Tursunov in one match, Roddick wants to help make amends when the 2007 campaign starts away to the Czech Republic in February.

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