Yet another Wimbledon Final has passed, now we can expect the summer weather to return to normal service.
Not that this years tournament was overly affected by rain.
The final appeared to be rather one sided, even when you look at the final score 6-2 7-6 (7-2) 6-4.
To those that didn’t watch the final, the second set looks to be the only closely fought set of the match, but that is far from the truth.
Roddick played his socks off today, but was beaten by a better player. A much better player. I haven’t seen someone play as good as that in all my time watching Wimbledon. I’ve seen better and more closely contested matches, but never such a display of excellence as performed by Federer today on the Center Court.
Roger Federer produced a near pefect performance in his defeat of Andy Roddick. God knows he (Roddick) feels because he didn’t play that bad, it must feel like he hit a brick wall at the speed of some of his serves. Whatever he tried was sent back with interest on it.
Federer just seemed to be unable to miss anything. Some of his shots were amazing and matched by no one else throughout the tournament.
Many a time Roddick just stood there and wondered how the heck the ball had managed to find a way back over the net.
The game stats don’t show how well Federer played. His first serve percentage wasn’t that great for example. But it was his shot selection and execution that set him apart from Roddick. Federer specifically had his rackets tensioned slightly tighter than normal to allow him to cope with the sheer speed and power of Roddicks serve, but that wasn’t required. Roddick only produced the odd serve over 130mph with his fastest at 135mph. This was not going to be a match won or lost on the strength of a serve. It was not as if the length of the rallies was high either. Federer never gave up on a single shot, and often surprised Roddick with his ability to return the seemingly impossible. There were times when Roddick had to play the best tennis of his life just to win a single point.
As Roddick has shown against all of his opponents on the way to the final he was rightly there on merit.
Federer though, managed to up his game to an even higher level for the final. As he said himself, he felt really sorry for Andy as he felt he played his best ever. I don’t doubt that one minute. It was a great display of natural ability over power for a change.
So now Federer has won his third Wimbledon title in a row and joins the likes of Bjorg and Sampras.
Finally a quote from Roddick:
"I couldn’t have asked for more and wanted it more but this guy’s the best for a reason and deserves credit."
"He’s become such a complete player, even since he beat me in the semi-finals two years ago. He’s improved so much since then."
And looking to future matches against the champion, Roddick joked: "Maybe I’ll just punch him or something."