Oh hell …what a match it was!!!!!. That’s probably what everyone would be saying after watching the 2009 Men’s Wimbledon final. Andy Roddick v/s the Greatest Of All Times (GOAT) i.e. Roger Federer a.k.a. Fedex.
The score line stood 2 games each and fedex won the last set 16-14. This game would have set many records or at least challenged many. I mean how many of us would have seen crunch matches go to the length of 16-14 in the 5th set. Fedex served more than 50 aces in the match. It was the longest ever men’s Wimbledon final till date. And Federer kept his 8 months pregnant wife watching the match for the entire duration of more than 4 hrs 20mins.
This match had an elite audience with the greats of tennis like Pete Sampras (regarded as the GOAT in his time), Bjorn Borg, Rod Laver and several others watching it. Also part of the spectators were famous names like Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Woody Allen (famous Hollywood director), Alex Ferguson (Manager of Man United team).
One characteristic of the game was the fact that none of these guys were being very successful in breaking the other one’s serves. That kind of explains the huge number of aces in the match. Fedex surprisingly was unable to break the code that was constantly being changed by Roddick. This was previously unheard of when the man in question is Fedex , a God of the grass court.
These two have had 20 encounters now and Roddick has won only once. This was the 3rd time they were meeting in a Wimbledon finals and none of them had ever gone beyond the 3rd set. But this one was right up there and the spectators got their money’s worth. An excruciating game with both these veterans rallying hard to make the other bite the dust, or shall I say chew the grass. Some amazing tenacity was shown by both, who into the final set would have been physically and mentally exhausted with the set carrying on and on and on. But ultimately the challenger faltered giving Fedex his 6th Wimbledon Title and 15th Grand Slam Title.
Last but certainly not the least Federer acknowledged how tough this game was by saying in the post match presentation“tennis is a crazy game , my head is spinning , but it’s a great moment in my life”. Good one champ…!!!!
