16-14 in the fifth?!

Wow. We've been out of town and away from internet access, and spent the last week recovering from the trip. Our flight took off right at the end of the 1st set, so we saw the last few games on the airplane's TV, including Roddick breaking Federer, and I figured we'd see the whole match, but we landed in Orlando at 8-8 in the 5th. It's too bad Roddick couldn't close out the 2nd set tiebreaker -- there was one point that stood out, where he mis-hit a high backhand volley (practically an overhead) that he "should" have gotten. It was a difficult play, but he wasn't quite able to make it, and I couldn't help but think that it's the kind of play Edberg or McEnroe would have made. If the sets (before the 5th) didn't go to tiebreakers, I'll bet Roddick would have won. Federer simply couldn't break Roddick that day until the very end.

One last addition: I really hate it when I read articles by people who think that Roddick isn't an elite player because he doesn't have more slam titles. It's really hard to win slam titles when Federer and Nadal are out there; Djokovic (2008), Gaudio (2004), Hewitt (2002), and Roddick (2003) are the last people not named Nadal or Federer to win each of the four majors, in order). There have never been a pair of men's champions like this; even Seles/Graf and Navratilova/Evert might not have been quite this dominant. To suggest that their greatness is due to a lack of competitiveness at the top is not really fair to anyone.