Roddick says it's hard to carry US hopes

MELBOURNE - Andy Roddick admitted it was tough to carry the hopes of an expectant nation after his latest failure to break the United States' longest-ever men's Grand Slam drought.

Roddick was despondent after only his second straight-sets loss at the Australian Open against Stanislas Wawrinka, missing the quarterfinals. Another Swiss, Roger Federer, blanked him in the 2009 semis.

The 28-year-old Texan won his first and only major - and the last for an American man - at the 2003 US Open, a yawning gap for a country whose previous longest dry spell was five years in the 1980s.