metsman
Talk Tennis Guru
Agreed that 03-04 Roddick's overall level was better. It's possible that 09 Fed bots well enough and puts together some returns in TBs against 03-04 Roddick. Worth noting that Roddick didn't serve nearly as well as 09 in either 03 or 04 in the matches against Federer. Fed circa 03-04 had the best 1st return ever so that's part of it. But yeah 03-04 Roddick would definitely be a handful for 09 Fed whose first return had declined by a good amount along with the mild decline in footwork against the much bigger Roddick FH.Let’s agree to disagree on that one. Roddick dropped a set to scrubs in each of the first 3 rounds of Wimbledon. He needed 5 sets to get by a very washed up version of Hewitt.
Fed’s return of serve had slipped several levels by the time that he played Roddick in that final.
Roddick’s 2003-2004 level was much higher. Roddick in an interview in 2007 said that he noticed that his serves had dropped a few mph each year during the last couple of years . Roddick said that he often looked at the radar gun during matches.
2003-2004 Roddick beats 2009 Federer at Wimbledon pretty easily, IMHO. By 2010, Fed’s return of serve started costing him matches to much weaker players.