Federer Proves Too Much for Roddick, Wins 9th Grand Slam Title

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The New York Sun

The final match went from rout to rumble and back to rout again, but the result was no different than most people had predicted before the U.S. Open began: Roger Federer, three-time defending champion.

Federer weathered an inspired and aggressive attack from Andy Roddick, the 24-year-old American whose tennis had faltered before he met a man named Connors this summer and went on a fine run. The final score was 6–2, 4–6, 7–5, 6–1 after Federer swatted an overhead and fell to his knees, and then on his back, basking in another bit of history as Tiger Woods looked on from his guest box. The world no. 1 from Basel, Switzerland, has now won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open back-to-back three years in a row, a feat never before achieved.

Only three months ago, many questioned Federer’s place not just among the all-time greats of tennis, but among his peers.

How could the best player in history lose to the current world no. 2, Rafael Nadal, five consecutive times, including once in a Grand Slam final? Mats Wilander wondered whether Federer was even the best player of his generation, never mind the man destined to glide past Pete Sampras’s record of 14 Grand Slam titles. He even doubted Federer’s conviction, a remark that Federer dismissed at Wimbledon with a touch of anger.

Yet for all the talk, Federer appeared in all four Grand Slam finals this year and won three of them. He came within two sets of winning a calendar-year Grand Slam, something that hasn’t been done in 37 years. Since Rod Laver’s slam in 1969, no man had played in all four Grand Slam finals before Federer. Only four men — Jack Crawford (1933), Don Budge (1938), Lew Hoad (1956), and Laver (1962 and 1969) — had won three or more majors in a single year. At age 25, Federer has collected nine Grand Slam titles and shows no signs of letting up.

“He’s improving, as well, which is scary,” Roddick said.

After the match, Federer was elated and more talkative and humorous than usual, joking with the press and taking pride in having achieved so much despite the pressure he had felt from Nadal and those who suggested Nadal might surpass him.

“After winning Wimbledon, I sot of said, ‘Okay, whoever wins the U.S. Open I guess is really better,'” Federer said. “So came here and won, so it’s fantastic.”

In the first set, the match looked like it might amount to a oneman highlight reel. Roddick won 20 points in the set, 10 during his service games and 10 during Federer’s.

He blocked back Roddick’s 135 mph serves and dipped several cross-court backhands over the net and down to Roddick’s shoelaces.Whatever Roddick did, forehands and backhands seemed to sail past him or ricochet off his racket. The American did not hit a forehand or backhand winner the entire set.

But Roddick had promised that he would give Federer everything he had, and he kept his word in the second set.

Even though Jimmy Connors has only tutored Roddick for a few months, his imprint has been apparent. Connors, like Roddick, did not have the grace and physical gifts of a John McEnroe or Federer, but he would do just about anything to compensate for it: kick, scream, bellow, and above all else, hustle. Roddick manage to turn the match into a scrap rather than a contest of beautiful shots, and Federer became a bit flustered.

Roddick did not serve and volley much, choosing instead to approach on deep forehands and backhands and a few well-placed backhand slices. Federer passed him, but missed just as often. Roddick pumped his fists. He hollered, “Come on!” after knocking off a firm volley or hitting a passing shot. He didn’t face a single break point in the set.

For a few moments in the third set, it seemed the match might swing in either direction. At 2–2, Federer escaped from a 0–40 deficit, aided by an ace and an overhead that Roddick nearly returned (he and Connors exchanged grins, recalling, it seemed, Connors’ famous point against Paul Haarhuis in the 1991 Open, when the 39-year-old Connors returned four overhead smashes before prevailing with a backhand winner).

Federer held that game with an ace, and then pressured Roddick’s serve for the first time in the set. To deuce and back they went as Federer earned five chances to break serve. Roddick snuffed him out with a 134 mph service winner.

At 5–5, Roddick seemed to believe, and he even told Patrick McEnroe, the Davis Cup captain and a court-side spectator, that he was having fun. And then that party abruptly ended. Federer took a 0–40 lead and broke a point later when Roddick, in an unfortunate bit of decision-making, charged a backhand slice and tried to volley it.Into the net it went, and off went Federer, playing at a speed and with a precision that no one else on the tour can match.

It was a scene that Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi, Federer’s last two victims in U.S. Open finals, know all too well. Hewitt lost two sets at love, while Agassi seemed on the verge of taking a two-sets-to-one lead before Federer came crashing down on him. Suddenly his forehand finds seemingly impossible angles, and his feet, never still, seem to move before his opponent strikes the ball, as if someone had tipped off the champion from the stands. Roddick looked winded after one 24-stroke rally and fell behind 5–0.

It took Agassi 21 years to tally up eight Grand Slam titles, and now Federer, a month after his 25th birthday and a week after Agassi’s tearful retirement from tennis, has moved past him. There’s no one left in front of Federer but the greatest of the greats: Pete Sampras, Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, and Bill Tilden. All those men have 10 Grand Slam titles or more, led by Sampras’s 14.

“I don’t want to stop here,” he said.

As for Roddick, there is hope — just ask his father, Jerry, who spoke after his son defeated Mikhail Youzhny in the semifinals on Saturday.

“His attitude is a lot better,” he said. “He’s beginning to feel like someone believes in him.”


The New York Sun

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