Last Year's Runners-Ups, This Year's Winners

Heartbreak at Wimbledon this year for Elena Dementieva and Andy Roddick may have a silver lining next year, if this year's any indication. Last year's runners-ups Serena Williams and Roger Federer were this year's winners after both got through thrilling marathon matches that took them within a hair's breadth of losing--Serena up against a match point to Dementieva in the semi-finals and Federer in his historic 16-14 defeat of Roddick in the fifth set of Wimbledon.

Or Dementieva and Roddick might take heart to have been a part of history and helped show just how great Serena and Federer are, by forcing them to step it up from their A games.

And what A games they possess. Both are without question the best players of their generation. Serena is hard to like, at least on the court. Her ferocious ambition, even against her own sister, can be intimidating for the viewer, not just her opponents. I'm always rooting for Venus when she steps on the court. But when Serena does, I'm almost always rooting for her opponent, just as I always pull for anyone but Sharapova, Safina, Safin, Lleyton Hewitt or--up until recently--Andy Roddick. For me, she's belonged to that obnoxious crowd of players who inspire the worst in us--the whining, the temper tantrums and pouting. Off the court, Serena seems like a lot of fun, as nice and funny as she is serious and humorless on the court. Maybe she needs to have this kind of normal gal pal off the court/supervillainess on the court dichotomy to thrive. Few have ever thrived as she has on the professional tour, now up to 11 Grand Slam singles wins, a gaudy record that would be getting a lot more press if she weren't in the shadow of Federer's ostentatious 15 Grand Slam singles wins.

Marriage seems to have chilled Roddick out some though and made him more likeable on the court. But the brat made a brief return when Federer graciously noted that he had lost at last year's Wimbledon and suggested Roddick might have his turn next year. "Yeah, but I haven't won five already," Roddick barked back, or something along those lines, not smiling, but looking like he actually could bite Federer, if given the chance. It was not a pretty moment for him. But then losing his third final to Federer, no matter how many pages of tennis history they made, must have not felt too pretty either, even if Roddick finally seems on the verge of reaching his own outsized potential.