I highly doubt Fish was more gifted. Black probably was athletically, but overall, not so sure. Roddick's serve for one thing is an amazing talent, and one Blake never had.
They both had the tools to have an all court game. Roddick did not.
And no, Roddick didn't need to be in this magical 'stike zone's and use 'the right amount of spin for his power to be effective'. This is simply senile ramblings from a madman stuck in the 90's. This is my analysis of Roddick.
A very good player who in his prime generally lost to players who were technically superior to him. Let us take a look at 03-04.
AO 03 - was tired after that SF, I highly doubt he beats AA anyway.
W03 - lost to a better player but also had bad luck with delays
AO04 - lost to a better player
US04 - lost to a player who many people could lose too, not a bad loss, pim was sick.
AO05 - lost to a slightly better player
W05 - lost to a better player
And no, Roddick was not a poor mover. Maybe if you have an iq of 45 then I guess you would think so. However, for the life of me, I cannot understand why this was missed. Roddick's greatest weakness was his return of serve. If he had a better ROS, his record over Federer would be quite a bit better. I cannot believe people haven't even mentioned that this was his downfall when it came to his biggest losses. It was one of the worst, perhaps the worst return from anyone who has had the success Roddick had.
@Sabrina, unless you have had the impact on your 'specialty' that Roddick had, please do not talk about lack of succes. Roddick can say that he was the best in the world for a brief period of time in his profession.
I get the sense that people really didn't watch much of Roddick. Most people who watched Roddick would know that his BH became his strongest stroke after 06 aside from a couple of tournaments at Dubai and Miami where he had some 03/04 moments.
Could he have done better? Yes. However he played an extremely defensive game which does generally not yield great results. Djokovic and Nadal get thrown crap, but they were far more offensive than Roddick of 06+.
That Sampras fan is a tool. Saying Roddick's serve was easy to read. Guy hasn't even played at 3.0 level and he is talking smack about 140mph serves. Idiot.