I believe that both Hewitt and Baghdatis are ranked far below Murray and Gasquet.
What really matters is where they were ranked when they played Roddick and Djokovic at Wimbledon. Murray was ranked only #44 in the world when he beat Roddick at Wimbledon in 2006. Gasquet was ranked #14 in the world when he beat Roddick at Wimbledon in 2007. Baghdatis and Hewitt were ranked #16 and #19 respectively when Djokovic beat them at Wimbledon. So Murray was in fact ranked much lower then either when he beat Roddick at Wimbledon, and Gasquet was not ranked much higher. Regardless the main thing is on grass all 4 of those would fall in about the same level currently.
And Roddick only lost one round earlier than Djokovic, who had a much easier draw to the semis.
Hogwash on the much easier draw. Roddick played two players ranked outside the top 100 in the first two rounds. In the 3rd round Djokovic played Kiefer and Roddick played Verdasco. Kiefer is a much better and more dangerous grass court player then Verdasco. In the 4th round Djokovic played Hewitt and Roddick played Mathieu. Again no comparision, former Wimbledon Champion, even at this point in his career, is by far the tougher grass court opponent of those two. In the quarters Roddick played Gasquet and Djokovic played Baghdatis. Baghdatis had already been to a slam final and slam semi at the time of this match, and had been a semifinalist the previous year. There is zero basis for saying Gasquet was the tougher opponent in a slam quarterfinal, and quite frankly if you saw the match Baghdatis played atleast as outstandingly in narrowly losing to Djokovic as Gasquet did to narrowly beat Roddick, maybe even better. Djokovic overall had the much harder draw with atleast equally tough opponents in every single round, and much harder 3rd and 4th round opponents.
One of the only reasons that Roddick hasn't been in the semis in the past 2 years (besides Gasquet) is that he has keeps drawing Fed in the quarters and has yet to match up against Nadal or Djokovic on his side of the draw in the quarters.
Well then again Djokovic is the one who can beat Federer in straight sets in a slam semifinal on hard courts. Can Roddick do that? Nadal is the one who can take Federer to 5 sets in a Wimbledon final, and have Federer do no better then win a tiebreak set for 4 sets. Has Roddick shown he can do this ever? Yeah I thought so. You might want to ponder why this is.
I guarantee that besides Fed, Roddick is the last person anyone wants to see in their side of the draw in Wimbledon (and USO). Maybe this time Nadal will actually have to play a highly ranked (top 20, Roddick, Blake, Stepanek) flat hitter before the finals of something besides a clay court for once. Same for Djoker.
Nadal did have a hell draw for him last year. He played Youzhny and Berdych who are hard flat hitters who he has huge trouble with on hard courts. He beat Soderling in the 3rd round, another hard flat hitter. Those are easily tougher opponents for him then Stepanek, and just as tough as Blake (who he has beaten the last 2 times he played on hard courts btw, so dont hold out much hopes on grass if they meet).
As for Djokovic your easy draw references to him last year were nonsense as I have already shown, especialy compared to Roddick's, so I will leave it at that.
You really think Nadal or Djokovic would say they would be more worried about playing Roddick then each other. LOL!
