Federer beats Roddick, gets # 15

Jul 06, 2009 Tennis

Gosh ! What a Wimbledon final !!

Federer finally clinched his 15th Grand Slam but not before Andy Roddick gave him some super anxious moments during this marathon of a match. The scoreline says Fed won 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14; the longest Wimbledon final in terms of games, as well as the longest Slam. The final set, which went to 30 games and 95 minutes, was also the longest ever in a men’s Wimbledon final and even longer than the women’s singles final this year !!

Last year, Nadal had wrested the crown from Fed in a nerve wracking match that lasted just short of 5 hrs, prevailing 9-7 in the final set, in semi-dark conditions.

What can one say of Andy Roddick ? He put in one of his most inspired performances ever and still came up short, for the third time here. It was really tragic that he never lost his serve during the entire match, except in the final game, and Federer, who made so many unforced errors, couldn’t break Roddick, and lost his own serve, walked away with the trophy. No doubt, Fed deserved it, but I guess everyone on Centre Court would agree that Roddick didn’t deserve to lose.

Fed of course, pulled out aces whenever he was in trouble (50 in the match!), and in the fifth set, had progressively shorter service games, whereas Roddick’s always seemed to go to the brink. Roddick of course, had a golden opportunity in the second set tie-break, when he was up 5-1 and then 6-2, with four set points to take a 2-0 lead. Fed then showed champion stuff in reeling of the next 6 points in a row to snatch the tie-break 8-6 and level the match.

Federer now has 6 Wimbledons (one short of Sampras), 5 US Opens, 3 Australian Opens and 1 French Open.

Hail Federer, well and truly an all time great !!