HIS heart was strong, but in the end Andy Roddick’s legs let him down and without that kind of momentum, it was impossible for him to repel Roger Federer’s advance to his ninth grand-slam tournament title here last night.
With Tiger Woods in his corner for the very best of exclusive company — they are represented by the same management company and Federer invited him to his private box on the spur of the moment yesterday — the Swiss prevailed against the No 9 seed 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.
It was a mighty effort from Roddick, perhaps better than even he believed he could play, one of enormous variety, self-confidence and desire. Perhaps actually reaching the final was a victory in itself for Roddick when you recall what a shell he was at Wimbledon in June after his third-round defeat by Andy Murray.
There, he looked like a player without hope, but it has returned. It helps when a legend of the sport wants to play a part in your development and sees something to work on and so with Jimmy Connors on his side, Roddick has been transformed. Even the guidance of Connors is not enough for Roddick to overhaul Federer, not just yet, but the 24-year-old has done himself an enormous power of good.
“Tonight was really special. It is good for me to see Andy back at the top of the game because it is always a joy to play him,” Federer said, but then why wouldn’t it be when he has beaten him in 11 of their 12 meetings?
At the beginning and at the end of this victory — with which he has overhauled the likes of Andre Agassi, Ivan Lendl, Ken Rosewell and Connors himself in the total of grand-slam victories — Federer was at his imperious finest.
There was an eerie feeling around Flushing Meadows at the outset when Federer rolled out the first five games and Roddick seemed consumed by nerves. Then Roddick nailed two successive Swiss service games by a combination of powerful serving, net-rushing and some implausibly fine serving. When he clinched the second set, a wave of optimism surged through the stands.
Federer had to withstand four break points in the fifth game of the third set — and who knows what the outcome might have been had Roddick been able to pounce then? Roddick had to stave off five break points in the next game but with each one of those, more energy drained, and you cannot hope to compete against Federer with a three-quarters empty tank.
These championships began with the dedication of the National Tennis Centre here to Billie Jean King and all that she has done to empower women in sport. Twelve days later, Maria Sharapova, the billboard-hogging embodiment of Billie Jean’s entreaties, was cradling the women’s trophy and $1 million (about £536,000) in prize-money and bonuses.
It is difficult to separate Sharapova from the bottom line because she stares down at one from most sidewalks and her face adorns the sides of more buses than Katie Couric, the first woman to anchor the CBS Evening News. Sharapova, 19, who has called the United States home since arriving as a 7-year-old refugee from Siberia, won the US Open final 6-4, 6-4 against Justine Henin-Hardenne, of Belgium, clothed in the tennis-playing equivalent of a black cocktail dress, her evening attire throughout the tournament.
For Sharapova, victory on Saturday was a welcome endorsement (and she has plenty of those) of that at Wimbledon in 2004, since when she had lost in the semi-finals of five grand-slam events and had had to deal with suggestions that her triumph at the All England Club was a flash in the pan.
Yet she is probably the most consistent player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, having reached the semi-finals or better in nine of ten events before the US Open and won two titles, in Indian Wells and San Diego, without dropping a set.
This was her sixteenth consecutive grand-slam tournament, she has been ranked in the top five continuously since November 2004 and only Amélie Mauresmo, the Frenchwoman whom she trounced in the semi-finals here, of those on tour have been at such a rarefied level for longer.
When Robert Landsdorf, her erstwhile mentor from Florida, suggested in the spring of last year — immediately after a 6-0, 6-0 defeat by Lindsay Davenport in Indian Wells — that Sharapova was a prime candidate for burn-out, it was he who was burnt. You don’t mess with Maria.