Roddick beats Federer in Miami

I will be the first to admit that I was very surprised not to see Roger Federer come through this with relative ease against Andy Roddick.

Roger Federer and Andy Roddick after their match in Miami.

To be honest he really should as he has been the in – form player so far this year.

Federer was 21-2 up in the head two head and Roddick had been losing to pretty much everyone  over the last few months so an upset seemed unlikely.

The first set was both players holding serve fairly comfortable. To be honest it was very boring to watch, if you had to pick one man to win it you’d say Roger looked the more likely when he got into the rallies. It was not a massive surprise that it went to a tie – break.

Now usually tie breaks are good for big servers but Roger always seems to come out on top against Roddick. This time he didn’t, At 4-3 Roddick, Federer played a forehand approach shot on the move and then was unable to put away a tricky overhead. He really should have made it but it gave Roddick the mini break he needed and he duly took the first set.

The second set was judge a complete reverse of what happened in the first set. Federer sprung to life and started returning the Roddick serve with ease, he broke him three times and took the set 6-1 to level the match. He also changed his tactics a little bit and started coming to the net more. It paid off as Roddick was deep behind the baseline and struggled to get anything meaningful on his own returns.

After taking the second set I thought Federer would take the third set with relative ease and at the beginning of the third set it looked like that would be the case. Federer held his opening service game easily and had triple break point on the Roddick serve. But to the americans credit it saved all them break points.

After saving those break points Roddick went into overdrive and started playing high risk tennis, simply ridiculous tennis at points which really did catch Federer off guard. He broke the Federer serve in the next game and went onto seal the match hitting three consecutive booming first serves.

Federer Press conference after his loss to Roddick

Is this a serious loss for Federer?

It is very hard to read much into this match, if the match had gone five sets I think Federer would have won. If it had been played on a different surface away from Miami, I think Federer would have won.

Let me put it this way, Federer had chances to win the match, he had break points and  he created plenty of opportunities. All of this on a hard court playing like a clay court, against a guy playing dare I say Federer like tennis and playing his best match for a long time.

Massive respect goes to Andy Roddick. He served great and didn’t beat himself up after losing the 2nd set 6-1 which to be honest would have been understandable. He didn’t let up and played as aggressive as I think at least I have seen hm play since he beat British number one Andy Murray at Wimbledon in 2009. He really did deserve the win.

Yes I am disappointed that Federer lost because I think he had a good chance of winning the tournament. But I think this could be a blessing n disguise. The last thing I think anyone wants to see is Federer burning all his energy before the next two grand slams.  He has never had an easy ride in Miami so there was not really any reason to expect this tournament to be as successful as the last 3 he’s played.

Ok he lost hos 16 match winning streak but in my eyes in the general scheme of everything, it really does not matter. Yes it would be great to see Federer picking up the points and becoming world number one again. But for me it would be great to see him win Wimbledon for the seventh time and if he continues to play the way he has done since last years US Open, he has a very good chance of just doing that.