Roddick Demands Investigation After 59-Year-Old Billionaire’s Bizarre Pro Debut

Friday, 11 July 2025 at 23:00

byJordan Reynolds

A 59-year-old amateur playing a doubles match at the 2025 Newport Open alongside Jack Sock generated much attention. Andy Roddick's view on the matter has been made abundantly clear.

Bill Ackman, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, initially announced he would play with Nick Kyrgios, and was training for that moment.

Kyrgios could not follow through because of an injury. He withdrew from the entire grass-court swing after sustaining another setback in his recovery. It is unknown when the Australian will return to action.

Jack Sock stepped in to replace Kyrgios. On Wednesday, the pair competed at the Newport Open, an ATP Challenger Tour event, against Bernard Tomic and Omar Jasika in the opening round, with many watching worldwide.

Despite Ackman unsurprisingly being nowhere near a professional level, he and Sock won six games in a 1-6, 5-7 defeat. Tomic and Jasika were clearly not trying as hard as they could for long periods of the encounter.

In an episode of his podcast, Roddick ripped into the entire situation. The 2003 US Open champion said it looked like Sock, Tomic, and Jasika had been paid off, and felt it was an insult to an event held at the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

"It was a match where it looked like four players were in the bag. You don't give a wildcard to someone who 59 players at my club are better than. I'm on committees for the Hall of Fame. I'm honoured to be part of the Hall of Fame."

"I have great relationships with people on the Hall of Fame, and you can disagree with people that you have a good relationship with. This was a total miss. The job of the Hall of Fame is to preserve and celebrate excellence in our sport. This was the biggest joke I've ever watched in professional tennis. Even Tomic… he was serving 50mph to someone. He’d have a sitter and he'd play it softly."

Read also

Roddick did not stop there. He wants the match investigated and encouraged any doubting fans to watch highlights of it and judge for themselves whether Sock, Tomic, and Jasika were giving it 100%.

"If there was any sort of review process in tennis... I remember [Nick] Kyrgios got fined for tanking [his performance] one year, because, like, if it's obviously less than your best effort, apparently that qualifies. This match is going to be under review. It has to be."

"There was exactly one person on that court trying as hard as they could. One person. If you want to be argue with me, go back and watch that video – you can't tell me there was more than one person trying as hard as they could every point, or any point. It was a disaster."

"This was beneath the Hall of Fame, in my opinion. It's nothing personal against Bill Ackman. He can do what he wants. His dream was to do it and someone is going to let him do it. It's not his fault, I don't blame him. Someone has to say yes to this. It was rough. It's the Hall of Fame. That's what's breaking my heart a little bit… it sucks."