Roddick in no mood for jokes after most draining and devastating of defeats

Published on Monday 6 July 2009 00:23

ANDY Roddick can be a witty and engaging figure when in the right mood, but after losing in five sets to Roger Federer yesterday he was understandably drained and not in the mood to chatter on light-heartedly.

He had thrown not so much the kitchen sink as the whole apartment at the No 2 seed, and, as he had done in his four-set semi-final win over Andy Murray on Friday, played some of the best tennis he has ever managed in his career.

Yet still he finished on the losing side in what was, in terms of games played, the longest ever men's final here.

It was the third time Roddick has lost a Wimbledon final to Federer, and the fact that he played far better and pushed the champion far further was no consolation to him. Nothing was, really, not even the knowledge that he is now a more all-round player than he was.

Asked if he had just lost to the world's greatest ever tennis player, he replied in one word. "Yeah."

Invited to describe what he had done today, he used one more. "I lost."

Even when he began to open up a little bit to questioning, it was to stress that he was in no mood to look on the bright side or to tell himself that the world would be a rosier place in the morning. "I don't know," he replied when asked how long it would take him to be able to reflect happily on the way he had played. "I'm not a psychic. I'm a tennis player."

Slowly, though, Roddick warmed to the unenviable task of reflecting on his defeat and on the imperious qualities of the man who beat him. "I don't know where to start there," he said.

"You know, he just makes it real tough. He was having trouble picking up my serve today for the first time ever. He just stayed the course.

"You don't even get a sense that he was even really frustrated by it. He kind of stayed the course and just toughed it out. He gets a lot of credit for a lot of things, but not a lot of the time (for] how many matches he digs deep and toughs out.

"He doesn't get a lot of the credit for that because it looks easy to him a lot of the times. But he definitely stuck in there today."

Those who expected that yesterday's match, like Friday's between Roddick and Murray, would be about the American's serve versus his opponent's return, were mistaken.

Roddick perhaps did not return as well yesterday as he had against the Scot, but Federer certainly served better than Murray had done, ending up with a total of 50 aces. "He served great," Roddick continued. "I didn't get a lot of looks at seconds.

"I felt like when we were in rallies for the last couple of sets, I was actually doing all right and holding my own, if not more.

"But he just served great. He did what he had to.

"If he wouldn't have served as well I'd probably be sitting here in a better mood."

Roddick admitted the second set tie-break, which he led 6-2, would live long in the memory and was difficult to recover from during the match.

"There's no way it doesn't cross your mind," he said. "We're human, we're not cyborgs. At that point, like everything else, there's two options; you lay down or you keep going. The second option sounded better to me."

Now 26, Roddick still has only one Grand Slam title to his name, the 2003 US Open, in which he beat Juan Carlos Ferrero. He lost to Federer in his home slam three years later as well as in those two Wimbledon finals of 2004 and 2005, and so his slam finals record now stands at a discouraging one win from five attempts.

But Roddick has shown here that he is not just an older version of the one who triumphed six years ago.

He is a more composed, more thoughtful player, and the one he is playing now is a result of a lot of hard work, both mental and physical, he has put in since the latter stages of 2008.

"I took some satisfaction in November and December when we started to move forward. It was to give yourself an opportunity to win tournaments like this.

"I feel like I did give myself that opportunity today. It didn't work out, but you know, I definitely gave myself a look."