Absolutely.
What happened to Roddick yesterday was the classic stuff of which so much Wimbledon drama is molded (and Marion Bartoli's ability to take utmost advantage of the grass surface to bounce Justine Henin also figures into this discussion).
Andy played exactly the right way: He forced the action, tried to impose his will and pace, pressed and pushed and tried to take away Richard Gasquet's time. And out of all the things you can strip a player of, time is the most critical.
All that Boy Andy did wrong was fail to close the deal after being up two sets and a break in the third, which is, admittedly, a pretty big cock-up. But that was less the matter of a missed first serve, or a decision to go down-the-line instead of cross-court with an approach shot to spark the fire that ultimately consumed Roddick. Such facts are the details of a match, just like the words are the details of a novel. The interesting thing is how those details fix together - or not - to illuminate the spirit of the match, or the competitors.
Gasquet playing superbly when he most needed to, and Roddick failed to shut the door on Reeshard's increasingly deft, insistent fiddling with the lock. Nobody did anything wrong. In fact, both players did everything right, or they did as much as anyone can ask in a tennis match. So it all came down to the details. At its best, the game on grass is played at the razor's edge of risk - you take your best shot and hope that, should you lose, it's just a matter of execution, as opposed to a failure of nerve, a strategic blunder, a horrific mental lapse.
More importantly, the men made the best use of the surface: Roddick to press and swarm when he could, Gasquet to find creative and breathtaking ways to slip out of the noose the raw-boned American was trying to slip over his head. In other words, they were making the most of the opportunities provided by this most treacherous and seductive of surfaces.
One thing that crystallized for me,watching that match - and it was with just half-an-eye, the other being focused on the extraordinary events on Centre Court (where Bartoli was battling Henin) - is that Roger Federer, for all of his dazzling stroke work and silken style, is one of the most "conservative" great players of all-time. You never feel that he is dominating a match, despite his dazzling strokework and mental clarity, in quite the same way that a Rafael Nadal or a Roddick dominates one. The truth is that nobody (except for Rafa on clay) gets close enough - and in mean that in an almost eerie, physical way - to push, bully, or discomfort him. Federer has a way of making any opponent but Nadal a kind of generic template on which he writes his daily saga of genius. Call it surgical, accomplished with the focus and steady hand of a surgeon. You can almost hear the Swiss dude humming.
But back to Andy. Sure, he might have taken better care of his serve - as my buddy Tom Perrota of the New York Sun, suggests - when he had the match-break in hand. And while you can always find an errant serve or missed forehand to blame, no matter how you cut it, this was a high quality match featuring two men equally resolved to win, determined in a brutal, it-is-what-it-is kind of way. Glorious grass court tennis.
Matches slips out of the grasp of players, even great players, even great players on peak occasions when they ought to know better. In a way, it's a lot like forgetting to make that telephone call you had promised to put in at a certain time. You can think of a million reasons for why you forgot, but the fact that you did forget, and that you know danged well you shouldn't have forgotten, tends to overshadow any justifications of your forgetfullness. All you have is that hollow feeling in your stomach: how could I do this? Plus this time, Gasquet made the brilliant shot, or the extra shot, when it was most useful to do so.
I noticed in some of the Comments in earlier posts that the death watch for Andy Roddick has been re-energized. And many of my colleagues here described this as a "devastating" loss for Roddick. That he was crushed and depressed afterwards is inarguable; we are not accustomed to Roddick conducting mono-syllabic pressers, seething with barely withheld bitterness, delivering cryptic pronouncements worthy of Nostradamus.
*
Andy, How did that one get away from you?*
"Very carefully."
Shoot, for a moment, you thought it was Jimmy Connors, after a loss to Bjorn Borg, sitting up there.
When pressed, Roddick cited the stats. Gasquet made three times as many winners as errors; Roddick struck twice as many winners as errors, statistics that tell you, among other things, how unreliable statistics - the ultimate details - are. For these numbers suggest that Gasquet might have won this match 6-2 in the fourth. Boy Andy's conclusion: "I thought I played prety well. I thought he played very well."
Sometimes it really is pretty simple, especially on grass courts. And I'm partial simplicity.
I also liked what Andy said to one of those straight-on, almost naive questions that often seems just annoying enough to elicit a great answer: Did you play too much to his backhand?
Oh yes you do, Andy. You just decided to challenge his strength with your strength, which is brave tennis, and brave tennis is not just the best tennis, but the most fun to watch - even if it isn't always the smartest tennis (although in this case, I believe it was). Just think McEnroe flying straight into the gale of Bjorn Borg's passing shots. Your strength beats his strength and you've made a statement; his strength beats yours and you cowboy up and look the guy in the eye as you shake hands and tell him, "Well done."
Andy made another noteworthy comment in his dirge ofa presser, when he was asked how Gasquet's backhand compares to the "other great backhands" he has faced.
I've been as tough on Gasquet as anyone (see my post on Novak Djokovic, The Perfect Player), but it's time to give credit where it's due. Reeshard played like a champion yesterday, and more power to him. His next assignment is one he's faced before, and failed to accomplish: proving that his brilliant performance was more than just a hot streak - and this is one guy capable of playing lights out tennis - that he can't back up.
As for Andy's "devastation", I wouldn't read too much into it. By tomorrow (or Monday, at the latest), it will be forgotten, as it should be. You don't get to be Andy Roddick by feeling "devastated" about losing tennis matches, much as it hurts for a brief period. You get to be Andy Roddick by losing a match like he lost to Gasquet, kicking yourself in the butt, and dragging it back onto the practice court, drawing fresh resolve and hunger from the experience. That's what champions do, and champions are not un-made by matches that get away from them the way Roddick's did yesterday.
