Great show thanks Roddick

Everyone wins in this final, and a match this close is also good for tennis.

The difficulty he had in winning this major against Andy Roddick is a signal that the coming summer season of hardcourt tournaments in the U.S. is going to be closely competed and uncertainty at tournaments translates into viewership. There are going to be as many as a half-dozen tightly-packed players in every important event in the coming two months. The upshot should be a big uptick in TV ratings for the men's game.

In the leadup to the U.S. Open we now have Rafael Nadal, Federer, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roddick, Juan Martin Del Potro and perhaps Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. If Tommy Haas can stay out of the rehab centers, he also becomes a big factor out there.

As memorable as Federer's record-breaking major title is, Roddick's performance will be equally recalled, at least by American fans. It marked his rebirth as a Grand Slam competitor and showed that he is now good enough to join Nadal, Federer, Murray and Djokovic among the elite in the game.

Most of the credit for this resurgence has to go to Roddick, who is the man on the court hitting the ball. But he'd be the first to tell you that coach Larry Stefanki has shown him a better way to play -- with more patience without giving up aggression and to be unafraid to start whacking those backhands instead of using them simply as strokes to keep himself in rallies.

There were a great number of flashback moments in this Wimbledon, but it also seemed a bit hollow with Nadal not there, leaving all of us who watched this four-hour plus marathon final to not only congratulate Federer but to ponder how things would have turned out if Nadal wasn't home rehabilitating his patellar tendons.

The hope now is that Nadal gets back on tour, though not prematurely. He remains, in the minds of the best experts, the No. 1 player in the world, despite his loss of the top spot to Federer as a result of this Wimbledon. Tennis needs him back on the court and, even at this early moment, I don't think it's unreasonable to make him the favorite to sweep New York.

If he did, he would become the second youngest player to hold titles in all four majors. Don Budge had just turned 23 when he won the French Open to collect all four. Nadal was 23 on June 3.

Charles Bricker can be reached at bricker@tennisnews.com

Charles Bricker