What? You cannot be serious!!!! Andy has always struggled in his career against Roger and the American looks on a path of retirement.
But Miami it’s Miami and it was here the last time he beat Roger, so… what’s best venue?
You could see it from the very beginning that Andy had a clear strategy that was really working. Serve big (well.. if you can.. and he could) and give floppy balls to Roger during rallies.
The American had the good intuition also to play 1 or 2 meters behind the baseline. It looked suicidal, but well Rafa doesn’t think so (and he is right).
So.. let’s see what happened set by set.
In the opener set nobody managed to break the opponent. Roger had 2 consecutive break balls in the beginning of the set, but he was not really able to convert them. Roger was really struggling to return the balls especially when Andy was serving on his backhand (something not uncharacteristic for Federer). So the set went to the tie break. Federer looked still having a slight upper hand, but it was Roddick to clinch the decider at 4.
The second set was completely different. Roddick had a very easy hold of his first serve game to lead 1-0. Then it was Roger’s show. The Swiss went 2 or 3 level above the tennis of normal human beings to put up a sort of exibition. Roger won the next 7 games in a row. (6-1 the second set). Roger was there… flying.
And here we are.. the 3rd set. Roger was leading 1-0 and had 3 consecutive break points (it would have been the 4th straight break!)… then life changed… and suddenly… Andy came back to defend all of 3 (and eventually a 4th one) to then win the game. Roger was not pleased at all and he badly lost his serve game (how was it possible? he was the super dominator of the match?). Andy was on fire blasting potent forehands (even over 100mhp!) and Roger’s face was… well you know when Roger is perplexed. The Swiss managed to hold his nerves, but his problems on returning Andy’s serve (not the easiest on the planet to be fair) came back. Andy had a horrible percentage of 2nd serve points won in the 3rd (33%), but the first one was enough (7 aces, 74% serve in and 77% 1 serve points won). And it was 6-4 for Andy.
The tournaments lost its most admired player, but he may have uncovered a new (well) one!!!
Good stuff Andy! Now you have to go for it!
ROGER’s INTERVIEW
HIGHLIGHTS
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