Number One with Number Fifteen

Roger Federer and Andy Roddick dueled to an epic 16-14 fifth set, the longest in Grand Slam Finals history, eclipsing the previous record of 11-9 during the 1927 French Open Finals between Rene Lacoste and Bill Tilden. As if by coincidence, Roddick wears Lacoste apparel during his matches. The 30 games were more than any fifth set in any of the Grand Slam Finals.

R-Fed is back on the rankings at number one with his sixth Wimbledon title and a record breaking 15th majors overall, passing Pete Sampras’ previous record of 14 (1990 to 2002). He was overtaken at number one by Rafael Nadal in August of last year after that crying game on center court. Nadal ended R-Fed’s record stay of 237 consecutive weeks at number one which began on February 2, 2004 after his first Australian Open title. Roger won his first Wimbledon title in 2003.

Roddick was in the greatest game of his life, coming up with huge serves but he faltered on the second set tie breaker. Then he wasted a break point that could have let him serve for the match, and again choked on championship point. Other than that, it was a great game of beautiful ground strokes from both athletes. Too bad somebody has to lose.

Roddick is a great player but his time clashed in the prime of R-Fed’s tennis career. Not since the days of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras that men’s tennis has been this good. Roger is having his sights at title #16 on next month’s US Open but Roddick, Nadal, Novac Djokovic and Andy Murray will be waiting in ambush.

The game last Sunday, which lasted until about 2am Monday, was also the longest men’s Grand Slam Finals in history at 77 games. The previous record was 71 at the Australian Open Finals in 1927 between Gerald Patterson and John Hawkes. The previous Wimbledon record was last year’s match between Nadal and Federer at 62 games. The game was attended by a record crowd of 30,867, an increase of 2,268 from last year’s crowd.

En route to victory, Roger served 50 aces, a personal record, one behind Ivo Karlovic’s Wimbledon record of 51. R-Fed’s previous best was 39 aces in a game at the 2008 Australian Open against Janko Tipsarevics. He now has 182 career wins in Grand Slam events.

There was some flak during the trophy presentation when R-Fed donned the Nike jacket with the “15” patch. I say that was a marketing strategy on Nike’s part. Do we hear any comments when the NBA, MLB, NFL and all those major league sports don their championship caps and shirts immediately after the game? These things are pre-manufactured, pre-prepared. If things don’t come out as planned, these items go to the shelves, never to be seen by the public. Same goes with Roger’s jacket. If the 15th eluded him, that jacket won’t see daylight, and his tears would wash the patch away.

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