Wimbledon -03/07/2009
Federer will be delighted
Right now, I expect that Roger Federer will be dancing around in his hotel room because Andy Roddick beating Britain's Andy Murray represents the perfect result for him.
Of late, Federer has enjoyed good matches against Roddick, which the Swiss has invariably won; and Federer crushed the sixth seed in both of their previous meetings in a Wimbledon final.
I expect the five-times champion to win the final pretty easily now, and that is a real shame because a Murray-Federer final would have been enthralling.
The atmosphere of the final is clearly not going to be as big as it would if Murray had won the semi-final, and Roddick-Federer matches rarely make for good contests - but at least the American will not go down without a fight.
I think that Federer will feel more pressure in this final than in other years because he is attempting to overhaul Pete Sampras's record of 14 Grand Slams.
On the other hand, Roddick has no pressure at all because he will view whatever happens in the final as a bonus.
I really feel that having no pressure may well suit Roddick, and he will be able to go out on Centre Court and swing freely.
In the semis the pressure was all on Murray and, although I felt that the Brit coped with it well, Roddick simply had nothing to lose.
The match was on a knife-edge, and could have gone either way, but Roddick had just enough aggression to take him through.
I think Roddick over-performed, producing a very mature performance to out-think Murray.
Murray's second serve was pretty vulnerable at times, and Roddick attacked it at every opportunity.
Normally when the match reaches its defining moments, Murray steps up his intensity and becomes more aggressive, but not in this match.
In the tie-breaks he was quite tentative, and in the games leading up to them he struck me as pretty passive in his approach.
Murray paid the price for his hesitancy at times, but credit to Roddick for seizing the initiative.
Roddick completely surprised me with the manner of his performance, and he always found a way of responding to Murray's advances and countering them.
This will go down as a pretty big shock, as I never really saw Roddick as someone who could reach another Grand Slam final.
It was an outstanding effort from the American, and a lot of credit must go to his coach Larry Stefanki, who got such a good performance from his player.
The feature of Roddick's game which surprised me the most was the quality of his backhand, which was magnificent today and put Murray on the back foot.
I think Murray will have been pretty content with what he did out there, but there are a few things he probably would have done differently in hindsight.
When he looks back on the match, I think he will feel as though he was not attacking enough when it really came down to the crunch.
Murray will rue the fact that he was not aggressive enough, and he played a few of the key points with too little venom.
People will write off the Scot at their peril, because his performance graph in Grand Slams is only going up and up.
I would certainly not be surprised if Murray was knocking on the door to be world number one before too long.
I think he could well be the world number two very shortly, and the number one in a year or so - do not doubt that he can achieve that.