No. 1 Roger Federer has reached his third Wimbledon final by beating No. 2 Lleyton Hewitt in a three set semifinal match. He will either face Andy Roddick or Thomas Johansson on Sunday for the championship. If Federer wins the final, he will become one of three men (Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg) to win three consecutive Wimbledon titles since 1936.
The interesting thing to note is that three players - Federer, Samprass and Borg - are all serve-and-volleyers. Grass is pretty much designed for serve-and-volley play and with more and more players switching to a standard baseline game, Wimbledon and the other grass tournaments lose the thrill of exciting matches like the Borg vs. McEnroe finals of the early 80s. We might never see that level of play again because the real only other successful serve-and-volley player left other than Federer is Tim Henman is he is 30 years old and reaching the Pro Tennis "retirement" age.
I think Federer's success hopefully might bring a resurgence to the serve-and-volley style. People look to Roddick and his success despite volleying no less than 5% of his points and choose to not volley. It's a great skill to have and most people don't ever learn because they don't play doubles anymore. Doubles is a great way to learn volleying and become comfortable with it. It's a shame, but Federer will proove why serve-and-volleying is such a great weapon and he might very well be the next Sampras, who won 14 Grand Slam titles. If Federer wins on Sunday, he'll have five.
Article comments
1 - visualsimplicity
I actually sort of think the serve and volley style is a tad boring. Go in with a big serve and end the point on the next volley. Baseline ralleys have a little more going for them in terms of seeing a duel.
2 - Tan The Man
What about when the other player scrambles to get to those volleys and it goes back and forth? Most of tennis is simple win/loss points and there are only a handful of really exciting rallies, some including serve-and-volleys and other as baseline ralleys. Again, it depends on the players and how skillful they are.
3 - visualsimplicity
You are probably right. Most of the great matches don't come from baseliners vs. baseliners or volleyers vs. volleyers I think. The greates matches are baseliners vs. volleyers. I mean, Agassi vs. Sampras were some of the best matches I've ever seen. Everyone of them were classics.
4 - Tan The Man
Especially that 5 hour 2002 US Open semifinal of Sampras and Agassi. Oh man. I still get chills.
5 - visualsimplicity
Yup, one of the greatest matches of all time I would have to say.
On a side note. You'd think that Andy Roddick would be perfect to be a serve and volleyer. I was always confused about his style. I mean, he's tall and has the fastest serve in the world. 2 fundamentals to being a great serve and volleyer just wasted.
6 - Tan The Man
Seriously, when he open the 2004 US Open he was going to do great things. His former coach Brad Gilbert kept trying to teach Roddick the serve-and-volley but Roddick refused to. I think that's why Gilbert left him.