Tennis star is hotel hero

last updated 8 January 2015

Rome

American tennis player Andy Roddick saved more than a dozen people from a fire in a five-star hotel in Rome this week. Roddick, in Rome to compete in the Italian Open, woke up when his sixth-floor room filled with black smoke. Opening the door, he found a group of gasping, choking people in the hallway and herded them onto the balcony of his suite to await rescue crews. Other guests jumped from higher floors onto Roddick’s balcony, among them Dutch tennis player Sjeng Schalken, who landed in Roddick’s arms. As the heat rose and windows began to explode, Roddick called his mom, in Florida, for instructions. She told him to soak towels in water and stuff them under the doors. “Mom,” said Roddick, “it’s way beyond that.” Three people died in the fire, but all the guests sheltered in Roddick’s suite survived.