Wimbledon 2005 News
By Alix Ramsay | July 01, 2005

So Sunday's final will be between Roger Federer and either Andy Roddick or the other bloke. You know.. Whatshisname. Him. the wee fella with the big ears.

As Friday came to a premature close in SW19, Federer was sitting in his rented apartment, close to the grounds of the All England Club, with his feet up. He had just thrashed Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 and had every right to feel confident and extremely pleased with himself.

Roddick, meanwhile was still in the depths of the first set against Thomas Johansson (I knew I'd remember his name eventually), the anonymous semi finalist. Johansson is good at being anonymous. When he won the Australian Open in 2002, no one knew who he was and nobody really cared. Everyone was writing about and reading about Marat Safin, the bloke he beat in the final.

So far, he has crept through the draw unnoticed and unheralded and was, when the rain finally called a halt to the proceedings, going to serve at 5-6. They will resume hostilities tomorrow at noon, two hours before the women's final is scheduled to get underway.

But judging by Federer's performance against Hewitt, it does not really matter what either Roddick or Johansson do - Federer is the odds-on favorite for the title. No one has worked out a way to stop him on grass since 2003 and it unlikely that either the American or the Swede will come up with the answer in the next 48 hours.

Hewitt certainly cannot seem to find a way to beat the champion. He has now lost to him eight times in succession and he is not getting any closer to the great man.

"You've just got to keep grinding away," Hewitt said. "You've just got to try to look for answers. But it's not easy. I feel that I've lifted my game over the last 18 months. I've got no doubt that I feel like I'm the second best player going around at the moment. It's just that the best player going around is pretty bloody good."

So there you have it: the technical assessment of Roger Federer is that he is "pretty bloody good". But you can see Hewitt's point. What more is there to say about a man who does nothing badly and everything superbly well.

But Federer is not done yet. There is no time to rest on your laurels when you are the world No.1 and, for all that he was streets ahead of Hewitt in the semi-final, he has criticisms of his overall performance.

"Definitely I think I can come more to the net, but it's not so easy," Federer said. "You try it out sometimes, and every time you get passed, it's not really helping out your confidence very much. And especially against Lleyton, he's one of the greatest returners and passers in the game we have right now. That's something I would like to do more, but it's not easy."

Blimey - if Federer thinks it is difficult, it must be hard. But he has learned to cope with many difficult things over the past couple of years. Being good is one thing, but learning to live with being good takes some doing.

"I've gotten many, many nice things said about me and my game and everything," he said. "I definitely appreciate that. They're very much easier to handle because of the success I had, whereas in the beginning I thought it was quite difficult to get all the praises. By then I still hadn't achieved nothing. Now it suits me better."

It suits him all right and once Sunday is over, it may suit him even better.

Lindsay Davenport took a handful of minutes to complete the last two games of her rain-delayed semi-final with Amelie Mauresmo. Coming back with the Frenchwoman serving to stay in the match, Davenport wasted no time in closing out the 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 win. The warm-up took longer than the remainder of the match. She is now through to her third Wimbledon final and the second where she will face Venus Williams. Don't expect touch and finesse -- be ready for a hell of a battle.

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