NEW YORK - When you're used to the red carpet, what happens when you have to get your feet wet?

Symbolism is as much a part of sport as everything else in life, or, to borrow that military reminder, rank has its privileges. Tennis, it follows, has its courts.

The stars get the best venues, which they expect and the tournament committee expects to give them. Brad Pitt doesn't play Peoria. Andy Roddick, at 29 the dean of American tennis, doesn't play on an outside court.

Except he did Thursday, when the court on which he was scheduled to play his U.S. Open fourth-round match, Louis Armstrong Stadium, could have been described in nearly Shakespearean terms: toil and trouble, sunburn and surface bubble.

So the match was shifted to the boonies, Court 13, where a baby was crying, the music from, in Roddick's words, "a Van Morrison wannabe" trying to sing "Brown-Eyed Girl" was crackling, and fans were shoving and pushing. In abstract terms, Roddick briefly stepped down from the big leagues to the minors.

The important thing as the No. 21 seed is that he also stepped up, defeating the No. 5 seed, David Ferrer of Spain, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, to advance to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time in seven tournaments, since the 2010 Australian Open.

Then, in something that wouldn't have worked at Armstrong, or most definitely at 27,200-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, he circled the perimeter of the barrier, slapping hands with fans already enthralled with the chance to watch a match that would have been off limits for those without expensive tickets.

The sun, finally, came out in New York, but two days of rain were too much for the court at Armstrong, which leaked and spit, from bottom up.

"The sun is sucking the moisture out of the ground,'' explained Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the sponsoring U.S. Tennis Association, "and the water is actually coming through the surface."

The match began on Armstrong. Roddick saw a few nickel-size drops that had formed and "I realized we had a problem.''

Play was halted and restarted after a fashion, but Roddick was, as he said, "baffled."

He pointed at the ground and asked tournament referee Brian Earley, "What is that?'' Earley responded, "Water.''

Not everywhere, not enough to hold a 100-meter freestyle, but too much to hold competition for the national tennis championship.

"It couldn't be more clear,'' Ferrer said later in Spanish. "In the Grand Slams, our opinion doesn't count. They don't listen to us.''

Earley listened late and acted later. Out the door of Armstrong and over to Court 13.

"I played there in 1999,'' recalled Roddick, who then was 17. "I lost to Scott Lipski in juniors first round. Year before that, I lost to Fernando Gonzalez, first round of juniors.''

So if he never plays there again, and he won't, Roddick departs with a victory and a memory. Roddick still is America's star. If he isn't on the big stage, Ashe Stadium, he's on Armstrong, which seats, 10,000. He plays mostly prime time, for those prime-time telecasts, on prime courts.

He's earned it, as he pointed out, having won the Open in 2003 and been for most of the decade America's top male player, someone with a wicked serve and a caustic sense of humor.

"You know,'' he said, "I didn't think Court 13 was in my future, but I probably could have promised you if it came to that, I was just going to call it quits. But extenuating circumstances, I guess. I enjoyed myself out there, though.''

In his future now is defending champion Rafael Nadal, whom Roddick plays today in one of the quarterfinals of a revised schedule that because of the rainouts Tuesday and Wednesday has the men's final - for a fourth straight year - being held Monday, not Sunday.

Nadal will be favored. Roddick probably shouldn't even have gone this far. Injuries kept him out of tournaments from Wimbledon, when he was ousted in the third round in late June, until the Cincinnati Masters the second week of August. He then reached the semifinals of the Winston-Salem Open.

"Yeah,'' said Roddick, "I didn't know what to expect. It was huge to get four matches at Winston-Salem. It's tough to get confidence by winning matches when you're not playing any.''

Roddick probably had an advantage at Court 13, where, as at most public and club courts, there's little space beyond the white lines, keeping the mobile Ferrer from reaching Roddick serves he might have tracked down at Armstrong.

"No,'' said a gracious Ferrer, "I think he won because he was better than me. And if we play in another court, for Roddick, he win the same match.' The (Armstrong) court was not good, We have bad luck this week. We play on Court 13, no?''

Yes, but certainly never again.