bigpaulyb

I have just watched the stunning conclusion to a men's final at Wimbledon that will be long remembered. Andy Roddick, the journeyman American player who's only won one major despite some significant talent, played Roger Federer, who was looking for the career Grand Slams record. One player played for redemption, the other for history. Roddick looked like the better player in the early going, winning the first set, and having a 5-2 lead in a second set tiebreak. Federer stormed back to win two straight tiebreakers. Roddick answered by breaking Federer in the fourth. In the fifth, they played, and played, and played, until Federer broke serve for the first and only time in the 30th Game, beating Roddick 16-14 in the fifth. Yes, I said 16-14.

Two weeks ago, I predicted Federer and Serena Williams would win their respective Wimbledons, and so they did. Got lucky.  I erred in saying the French Open was Fed's 15th championship. Wimbledon was Fed's 15th. See? I don't always get it right.

I hope they never get rid of the "no tiebreakers in the last set" rule in Wimbledon. To tell you the truth, I'm not a big fan of tiebreaks. Federer broke Roddick's serve one time, and won the match because he won two tiebreakers on top of that. Roddick broke twice to win both of his sets. In my perfect world, they should shorten the lengths of service games, that would seem fairer. In high school and college tennis, if the game gets to deuce, they play one point to decide the game.  I would not get rid of the advantage system entirely...I would say that after three deuces, a sudden death point would be played, and use that with a no tiebreaker system to decide a set.  Makes more sense to bring finality to games than it does to bring finality to sets. And to me, breaking serve should be a requirement to winning a set, not winning key points at an arbitarily set key time.

Is Federer the best men's player ever? I'd say yes, because he's still only in his late 20's. The players are catching up to him...Andy Roddick has finally proven a worthy challenger. Rafael Nadal is still in the argument, unless his injured knee proves more problematic. Federer is still the king of hard courts for now, and should be a favorite at the US Open in New York come August/September. I think he'll wind up with around 20 Grand Slams...mainly by winning a few more US Opens, barring injuries.

The Federer/Nadal match last year, I thought, couldn't be beaten, but a 16-14 fifth set in a men's final...not too often you will ever see one of those. Perhaps ever again.