Federer stands alone after Wimbledon title

WIMBLEDON, England -- A day before Wimbledon began, Andy Roddick stood on a slope overlooking the practice courts at the All England Club. Down below, Roger Federer was going through a training session, and Roddick sneaked a peek.

Two weeks later and a short walk away, Roddick got a much closer look in the Wimbledon final, and after absorbing a lopsided loss to fall to 1-9 against Federer, the American arrived at two conclusions:

Federer is better than everyone at everything, and Roddick would love nothing better than to keep trying to defeat the man who's by far the No. 1 player of their generation and now is being judged against the greats of generations past.

"He's probably as close as has been to unbeatable," Roddick said Sunday after losing to Federer at Wimbledon for the third consecutive year.

"I want another crack at him 'til my record is 1-31. I still want to go against him again. You want to compete against the best. He's the measuring stick, so you kind of know where you are and where you go."

As talented as Roddick is -- good enough to win the 2003 U.S. Open, finish No. 1 that year at the age of 21, and now make it to the final at the All England Club two straight years -- he can't come close to Federer at the moment.

But that's OK. No one can on grass. And no one can, consistently, on any surface.

"The bad news," as three-time Wimbledon winner Boris Becker put it, "is Roger is only going to get better."

Since June 2004, Federer is 98-5 (a .951 winning percentage) with 15 titles that have come on grass, hard, clay and indoor courts. None of the losses came in finals (Federer's won a record 21 in a row), though two were in semifinals at this year's Grand Slams -- against Marat Safin at the Australian Open and Rafael Nadal at the French Open, the only major he has yet to win and now will focus on adding to his collection.

Unprompted, Federer mentioned those setbacks during the on-court trophy ceremony Sunday after his close-to-perfect performance beat Roddick 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-4. He said the losses in Melbourne and Paris meant "the pressure was on" at Wimbledon.

After making 33 winners and only three unforced errors through two sets and whipping passing shots by Roddick at will, Federer was told that just when it seems as if he can't get any better, he does.

"It seems like it, yeah," Federer said, drawing laughter from the Centre Court crowd.