On Andy Roddick

At one point during this afternoon’s extraordinary Wimbledon final, Boris Becker turned to his colleagues in the BBC commentary box and suggested that sometimes in sport it is the loser who stands to learn the most, that failure can ultimately be more enriching than success.

Right now, I doubt that Andy Roddick would agree. This was his third Wimbledon final, and the third which he has lost to Roger Federer. He has not won a Grand Slam since his solitary triumph at the US Open in 2003, a victory which propelled him to Number One in the world. His career, which until the last few years had promised so much, has since foundered in the face of the emergence of Federer and Rafael Nadal as the pre-eminent players of their age and perhaps of any other era.

The Andy Roddick of 2009 bears little resemblance to the 2003 model. Gone is the hard-headed jock image which he presented as a younger man. In his stead, there stands a thoughtful, meticulous, altogether humbler character. And he is all the better for it.

For Roddick seems finally to have come to terms with the truth about his abilities and thus about his prospects during the remainder of his career. He can no longer simply blow his opponents away with a barrage of big serves and even bigger forehands. He has to do something more. He has to think his way around his opponent. His gifts, however extravagant, are not enough. Not only does he have to play well, but he also has to play cleverly.

And in the last few days he has played like a genius.

Roddick is less talented than either Andy Murray or Roger Federer and yet he convincingly beat the former and could so easily have repeated the trick against his long-time Swiss tormentor.

Today, it made for a wonderful spectacle: the canniness of Roddick’s approach was as appealing as any of Federer’s aesthetics. There is just as much beauty in an assiduously devised and executed gameplan as there is in a languidly elegant Federer forehand.

To my mind, sport is not just about the aesthetics of the physical action, but about overcoming one’s failings and learning how to win in spite of one’s deficiencies rather than simply because of one’s talents. Few of us are blessed with the genius of a man like Federer, but we can all identify with a competitor like Roddick. Here is a man who has learned to accept what he has and who he is and to work within those limitations to achieve all that he can. If it is losing which has taught this to Roddick, then maybe Boris is right, for there can surely be few more valuable lessons.