Roddick Falls Just Short in Career-Defining Performance

Every so often, there comes a moment in an athlete's life when he (or she) knows nothing will ever be the same afterward. For some, it's an isolated moment of infamy: Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series, Mitch Williams in the World Series seven years later, Chris Webber in the 1993 NCAA championship game, Jan Van de Velde in the 1999 British Open.

All were good at what they did, but they're remembered because of the time and place of their epic failures: Buckner kicking a ground ball when the Red Sox needed one more out to end a 68-year world championship drought; Williams allowing a walk-off home run that ended a World Series; Webber calling a timeout his team didn't have and Van de Velde making a triple bogey on the final hole when a double bogey would have won.

There are other examples of instant goats and instant heroes throughout sports history. But in the past two weeks, we have seen two elite athletes, one a lock Hall of Famer, the other a possible one, reach moments in their lives that could have outshone anything they had previously done -- only to come up achingly short.

Two weeks ago at the U.S. Open, it was Phil Mickelson. On Sunday at Wimbledon, it was Andy Roddick. The circumstances were different, the devastating nature of the losses very similar.

Roddick had become almost an after-thought in tennis in recent years. He won a U.S. Open six years ago at 21, and because no one has come along to challenge him as the top American player of his generation, he has been a big money-maker, one of those guys who is always squiring a beautiful woman around (including, most recently his new wife, Brooklyn Decker) and showing up on various commercials.

But for most of the past four years, he was a non-factor when the major championships rolled around. He was always a top-10 seed, often made the quarterfinals but no one really expected him to beat Roger Federer or, more recently, Rafael Nadal, not to mention Novak Djokovic. At 27, Roddick seemed likely to walk away from his career with lots of money and only one title that really mattered.

Except Roddick didn't see it that way. He kept changing coaches and trying to change his game to get better at a time when a lot of players in his situation would have just counted their money. He went on a new training program, lost 15 pounds and actually reached the fourth round of the French Open this year for the first time in his career.

Still, the talk at Wimbledon when it began was about Federer trying to break Pete Sampras's record of 14 major titles; about Andy Murray's quest to become the first man from England to win Wimbledon in 73 years and about the absence of the injured Nadal.

Roddick was seeded sixth. Everyone figured he would hang around until the quarters, maybe the semis and then be done. But he beat Lleyton Hewitt, a past Wimbledon champion, in a five-set quarterfinal. Then he stunned everyone by coming from behind to beat Murray -- and, seemingly, all of Great Britain -- in the semis. All of which still left him with a date in the final against Federer.

Twice, he would met Federer in Wimbledon finals. Twice, Federer had beaten him. In all, Roddick was 2-18 in his career against Federer. So, nice effort to get to the final, Andy.

Only Roddick didn't see it that way. He was all over the court from the start, winning the first set, 7-5. In the second set he had a 6-2 lead in the second set tiebreak. When Roddick wakes up screaming in the future thinking about this match -- as he surely will -- he will be thinking about those next four points, notably the high backhand volley he whiffed at 6-5. Federer won six straight points. Then he won a third-set tiebreak.

But Roddick still wasn't done. He broke early in the fourth set and cruised. He still hadn't lost his serve. They went to the fifth set. At Wimbledon, they play out the final set -- no tiebreakers. And so the two men played and played and played. For a while it looked as if neither would ever lose serve. Roddick had two break points he couldn't convert. Federer had several chances at deuce, but Roddick came up with big serves. Ten times Roddick had to serve to stay in the match. Ten times he held serve.