Wimbledon 2009

The Game Room
241

Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. Federer breaks the record and completes a major turnaround. (His reaction today was so different from the French as well.) Roddick played as well as he can possibly play and pushed Federer to the limit, both were generally outstanding, but for Roddick it wasn’t quite enough. You have to feel for him, but Federer richly deserved this one.

There will not be a fifth-set tiebreak at Wimbledon. The idea that a tiebreak would have been better than this, or the ending to last year’s match, is absurd. If the players were falling down at the end, there would be a case.

242

Is it just me, or did Roddick’s wife and Sampras’s wife look pretty much the same. Also, why don’t more players adopt Roddick’s shortened serving style? It’s obviously really effective, and I can’t recall Roddick getting any major injuries from it.

243

It’s just you. Their respective wives look completely different.

I don’t know the name of Roddick’s wife, nor do I care enough to hunt it down, but Federer’s wife is heavier set than the person that I think was Andy’s wife (Less so in the second pic).

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Andy Roddick’s wife (warning: probably NSFW)

Roddick discovered it more or less by accident - he was getting pissed off while practicing his serve against a speed gun as a junior player, because he just couldn’t get the power he wanted, and just tossed up a ball and whacked it out of frustration. Suddenly 130 mph flashed up on the gun, and he thought, “Hmmm… I might be on to something here.”

A few players have tried copying it recently- notably Maria Sharapova- but without much success.

Goran Ivanisevic had an even weirder serving style - all awkward and herky-jerky- and when he turned into the best server on the Tour people tried copying his style, but they failed too.

I can only think of one player who copied another player’s serve completely and actually had success with it - Tim Henman, who decided to try Pete Sampras’ “front foot up” serve during Junior Wimbledon, and carried on using the same motion throughout his professional career.

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Unfortunately, I was only able to watch the final set, from about 8-8 on. It was incredible tennis. I’ve always thought Roddick was over-hyped because he’s American, but he put in a fantastic effort today. I will say that from the part that I saw, Federer looked in charge. Even as they swapped games, it seemed to me that Roddick was “defending” and Federer was going for the win. I may be wrong, but whenever one was up a game it was always Federer, with Roddick matching, but not overtaking him. That’s tough to keep up over many games.

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That’s because Federer served first. That’s the luck of the draw, not the run of play.

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For me, this match and the last against Murray is where I switch from being indifferent to Andy Roddick because he’s just “some young guy” and me realizing he is a seasoned veteran and I start cheering for him to win something.

If he could win the US Open in August/Sept., it’s be great for him.

248

Ah, yes, I see that now. I don’t know if the whole 5th set was like that, but from when I started watching it, that makes sense.

249

I actually think Roddick played an overall better match than Federer, and should have won. He played essentially 6 sets of tennis without being broken once. :eek: Federer just picked it back up at the end.

In other news, did anyone see the post-match interview with Serena yesterday? Her sarcasm, eye-rolling and dismissiveness were extremely unflattering. Way to be a winner, there, [del]champ[/del] chump.

Here’s some eye rolls back at you: :rolleyes:

250

It was. Roddick was only broken on serve once the entire match, on the final service game.

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I think you get the wrong impression of the tenor of the match if you start at 8-8 in the fifth. I would argue than over the entire period before you started watching, Roddick was playing better than Federer. You picked it up at the point where the tide started turning. But up until then, Roddick had been putting more pressure on Federer’s serve (as evidenced by two service breaks to none at that point) than vice versa.

252

Although Federer had far more winners and only a few more unforced errors (and a shockingly high number of aces).

253

What, you mean the quips about the rankings? They are a joke. It’s laughable that Safina is number one, and I don’t know how many times a person can be asked about that without acknowledging it.

254

Absolutely. This week he finally lived up to his (considerable) promise. I don’t care that he lost (though I’m sure he does) - Federer is obviously the better player, but that last set was effectively a coin toss.

Roddick has won a Grand Slam event already, incidentally - he took the US Open title in 2003, which people seem to forget.

255

These days, Serena basically shows up for the majors and nothing else. That’s why she isn’t number one. She’s won three out of the last four, which is great, but she also had a losing streak this spring and in the less important tournaments, if she shows up at all, she hasn’t been winning. Safina has been consistently winning or going deep in those events. She hasn’t managed to bring home a slam event and is turning into a headcase, but she’s her last four slam event results are: semifinal, final, final, semifinal. And in lower tier events, Safina has won five titles and reached two other finals. Serena has won three majors in the last year and only made one other final (Miami). That’s why she isn’t number one. She can complain about it all she wants, but how is she supposed to be number one if she only plays well at three or four events per year?

256

Looking back, I didn’t realize how long it had been since Roddick reached a major final: the last one was his loss to Federer in the 2006 U.S. Open. I didn’t hear the postmatch remarks, so I don’t know how Federer’s comments came across, but Roddick was in or near tears after he lost, and after he beat Murray, he fell down, put his head in the grass, and cried. And he broke down in the locker room as well. He had a great tournament, and maybe convinced himself he can contend regularly for a few more years, but this is a really tough loss. I think he’ll bounce back, but this is the best chance he’s had against Federer in five years and he knows it.

And by the way, my girlfriend watched the end of the match with me and said spontaneously, of Federer, “he looks like Quentin Tarantino.” I still don’t think so but I guess it’s not that crazy. :wink:

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I had to chuckle during the postmatch interviews with Sue Barker when Federer said he knew how Roddick felt since he’d lost in the final the year before and Roddick called out, “but you had already won five of them!”

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Marley, I agree that within the context of the current rankings system it’s hardly a surprise that the Williamses aren’t higher. But that’s the point; the rankings are flawed in that they reward graft over top-level success. Sure, no ranking system is going to be perfect, but then again this one reflects the gruelling schedule of events the Williams sisters have rebelled against (and taken criticism for so doing).

And again: Serena has been constantly asked about the rankings throughout this tournament. How many times can she agree with a straight face that Safina is the best player in the world? She plainly isn’t.

On Roddick, I agree, this has to really hurt. I honestly expected him to crack after missing out on those four set points, and then again at 2-1 down, but he didn’t, which in a way makes the eventual loss even worse. I hope he realises that if he keeps playing like that, he pretty much has to win a major before long. Will be rooting for him heavily in the US Open, he deserves it something fierce.

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Showing up for more than a couple of events isn’t graft, it’s playing tennis. I respect that the Williamses have other interests outside of tennis, but they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. They don’t have to play a billion events to get to the top spot. They’re winning majors, so, they’d only have to play one or two events more than they currently do. If that isn’t their priority, fine.

Serena is 32-7 this year, Safina is 42-9.

Here’s Serena over the last 12 months, starting after Wimbledon:

Lost in the semis at Stanford. Lost in the quarterfinals at the Olympics. Won the U.S. Open. Had a first round bye in Stuttgart and lost in the second round. Didn’t make it out of the first round in the tour championships after going 1-1. Lost in the semis in Sydney. Won the Australian Open. Lost in the semis in Paris. Lost in the semis at Dubai. Lost in the finals in Miami. Lost in the first round in Marbella, Spain. Had a first round bye in Rome and lost in the second round. Lost in the first round in Madrid. Lost in the quarterfinals at the French Open. Won Wimbledon.

Safina:

Won in Los Angeles. Won in Montreal. Lost in the finals at the Olympics. Lost in the semis at the U.S. Open. Won in Tokyo. Lost in the quarterfinals in Stuttgart. Lost in the semifinals in Moscow. Didn’t get out of the first round at the tour championships after losing three matches. Lost in the finals in Sydney. Lost in the finals in Australia. Had a first round bye in Dubai and lost in the second round. Lost in the quarters at Indian Wells. Lost in the second round in Miami. Lost in the finals in Stuttgart. [They either moved this event to April or there are two tournaments there.] Won championship in Rome. Won championship in Madrid. Lost in the finals at the French Open. Lost in the semis at 's-Hertogenbosch. Lost in the semis at Wimbledon.

The WTA site says Safina has played 19 tournaments over the last year, and she’s got 10521 points. Serena has played 17 and has 8758. You get 2,000 points for winning a slam event.

Safina is not as good as Serena. But she plays more and she’s been more consistent lately. The rankings reflect that. Maybe the rankings could be better, but Serena isn’t behind because of some mysterious formula. She doesn’t want to play as much, so she doesn’t have as many points.

I’m not criticizing Serena for what she said, I’m just pointing out that the reason she’s not on top of the rankings. She says she’d rather be #2 and have three out of the four majors than be #1 and have zero. So would anybody else, I think. I’m not criticizing her for saying that,

Does he? I don’t know about that. He’s going to be maybe the fourth pick to win the U.S. Open, after Federer, Murray, and depending on health, Nadal.

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By the way - remember how, maybe two years ago, people were saying Federer wasn’t being challenged, it was getting a little boring, and did he have any guts, anyway?

Since then, Nadal pushed him to five sets in the 2007 Wimbledon final, then beat him in a better match there last year 2008, beat him in five in Australia (even though I thought Federer choked a few times there), then Federer wins the French, and plays another classic against Roddick. So much for boring. :wink: