Wimbledon Day 11: Everything Old is New Again

So, the Federer vs. Murray final that so many Brits were hoping for won't come off after all. Honestly, I'm really not at all broken up about it.

Displaying a more varied game than he ever has in all his years of play at Wimbledon, Andy Roddick took out Andy Murray in four close sets on Day 11, reaching his third SW19 final and his first at any slam since the 2006 U.S. Open. With his usual solid serve, great net play and better fitness allowing him to play the ENTIRE court, after for too many years being a better version of Ivo Karlovic -- all serve, but with little else to call upon in a pinch if things started to go against him -- Roddick was without question the best player on the court in this day's matchup. I'm glad he was able to pull off this run, too. And not just because I predicted him to do it two weeks ago, either.

I've got nothing against Murray, but to this point I've just never been able to "get" him. I don't DISLIKE him or his game, but I have so far found myself with zero excitement to see him play since he climbed into the upper echelon in the ATP rankings. That'll probably change, as I often tend to take a while to warm up to certain men's players. For a long time, I actively disliked Lleyton Hewitt. Now, though, I found myself pulling for him at this Wimbledon. Roddick, too, has often been the object of slight disdain in the eyes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Backspinner.

Roddick was unlucky enough to be born into the same tennis generation as a pair of all-time greats in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, virtually swiping away at least two or three additional slams he might have won since his '03 U.S. Open victory six years ago had the landscape been slightly less crowded. Hard to believe TWO players could make it seem crowded, but they surely have... and it's no coincidence that he's reached another slam final once one of them was taken out of the equation before the tournament began.

Still, while it's often been easy to feel bad about Roddick's predicament, he's sometimes made it difficult to do so. For years, he's been ever-present in ads on American television while winning nothing of true significance, and so often coming up very small when he played Federer. Add to that a certain smart-ass quality to his press conferences and interviews (such as the tiff that developed a while back when he started griping about Novak Djokovic), and it was easier to semi-sneer at his not-unexpected failures than pull for him to find his way back to something resembling relevance in the men's game.

Finally, though, that seems to have changed. Maybe it was his coaching switch to Larry Stefanki, altered game or long-overdue committment to fitness that did it. Maybe it was a settling down in his off-court life, courtesy of Brooklyn Decker. Whatever it was, it's worked.

As far as how I view Roddick, though, it was something else that was the catalyst. Ever since Roddick became the ONLY player to actually speak out in defense of Shahar Peer during the Dubai debacle earlier this year, I've viewed him differently. He pulled out of the men's event in the U.A.E., citing Peer's treatment as the reason, while so many others remained silent or played on. Even players who didn't play Dubai after the fiasco, like Federer and Nadal, listed injuries as their reasons for withdrawing and otherwise kept mum. Not Roddick, though. He stood up, and I think deserved to be given a large amount of respect for his position.

Ever since then, as his results have gradually improved, and I've found myself rooting for him, too.

While I still want Federer to win the title on Sunday, for history's sake, I wouldn't feel bad at all if Roddick took the crown. I never like rooting for a player simply because of them being an American -- I think it's akin to mindlessly voting for a straight ticket on election day -- but I do feel at least a small amount of pride that on Independence Day weekend, the only player who actually stood their ground when one of his or her fellow players was publicly wronged, was an American. And if he were to win Wimbledon, it'd probably make me smile.

Corny? Yeah, probably. But sometimes that's not so bad.



All for now.

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