Wimbledon Concludes

With this straight-sets win (6-2, 7-6, 6-4), Roger Federer scores his hat trick, equaling the three-peats of Sampras and Borg.

I posted earlier about Andy Roddick's performance at the French Open. At Wimbledon, he played a more attacking kind of tennis. It was the kind of tennis that pulled him through his five-setters with Daniele Bracciali and Sebastien Grosjean, and the kind of tennis that saw him through a breathless four-setter yesterday with Thomas Johansson.

Here are some of the improvements I think Andy made to his game.

1. Return of serve: He stands closer to the baseline on his opponent's first and second serves and is better able to make an aggressive return. He's also been charging the net on his opponent's second serve at times.



2. Transition and volley: He's constructing approaches better and isn't completely lost at the net. He's hitting his volleys with authority and some nice touch. At crucial points (like 15-30 or Ad. Out) he even serves and volleys, which is a testament to his confidence in his net game. He still could stand to hit better approaches and cover the net better, though.



3. Mental toughness: He's broken a recent losing record in five-set matches. 'Nuff said.

Unfortunately, Federer was the better player today. He outhit Roddick in groundstroke rallies, passed him repeatedly, and racked up the aces. He also kept his error count extremely low, hitting 49 winners to 12 unforced errors.

As a Roddick fan, watching the match was extremely stressful to me, particularly in terms of the commentary coming from the booth. The way Alan Wilkins and Vijay Amritraj were talking about Federer, it seemed like Andy had absolutely no chance against the "brilliant" and "magnificent" tennis Roger was playing. (I'm not saying it's not true that Federer's tennis was brilliant and magnificent; I'm just saying Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Amritraj could have been a little less biased.) If that kind of commentary were going on in Andy's head during gameplay, I think he might have retired from the match. Ü

I think Andy might be taking the loss better than his fans are (or he could be back at his cottage going, "NOOOOOO!!!"). He was grinning and in good humor at the award ceremony, same as last year.

It's too bad this "rivalry" with Roger is so lopsided now; Federer leads 9-1 in their head-to-head. At least Roddick went out playing very good tennis and defended his points from last year.

***

For the second time this year, Davenport has lost in a Grand Slam final to a Williams. Serena at the Australian Open, Venus at Wimbledon.

Venus Williams was down a set and a break before screaming to life and smacking winners forehand and backhand to bring the second set to a tiebreak. From there, she and Lindsay Davenport battled and scratched out the rest of the match. Williams came out on top in a third set that she won 9-7.

Now, I'm not a Williams fan, but Venus's better mobility than Lindsay's around the court was evident in this match. Although I should say that Lindsay had treatment for her back in the third set and probably had decreased mobility, most of her forehands and backhands should have had enough bite in them to end up as winners. Instead, Venus got to the balls and put them back into play. Often she ended up hitting outright winners.

I do wonder, though, if anyone found it just a little bit classless for Venus to jump around Centre Court after winning? I mean, a hop or two would be fine, but if you had any respect for your opponent you'd try to hold yourself back a little.

But hey, Serena did it too. And it's been such a long Slam drought for the Williams family that they could almost be forgiven for their jubilant celebrations.

It must hurt for Lindsay, though.

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 11:37 PM