Peace of Cake?

I don't understand something this trivial. Tennis is not the only thing that Federer is a master of. By now, it is accepted that Federer's English (apart from his Swiss, German and French) is fluent enough. Yet, there seemed to be a misunderstanding through the media and Roddick was lead to believe that Federer had wrongly claimed the match to be a piece of cake for him.

I watched the whole thing live and it was more than clear that Federer was simply repeating the interviewer's words only with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Roddick, on the other hand, who is normally the best and most gracious loser on the tour, didn't seem to happy and understandably so. One can't be cheerful (though compared to Serena he was), after playing brilliant tennis and losing in front of one's home crowd. Yet, there we have it. What does this straight sets defeat prove? A few things for sure:

1) Tie-breaks are cruel. While it's all very well to say that the better players play the bigger points better, any tennis player knows the element of luck, chance or whatever you wish to call it is undeniably ubiquitous during a tie break.

2) Federer reads Roddick's serve like a wizard and it is primarily this characteristic that always (more often than not) ensures him out-acing Roddick by the end of the match.

3) Roddick is always a threat on hard courts and he should have played Davydenko in the quarters instead of Federer. 4 playing 5 is realistic and expected. 1 playing 5 in the quarters is retarded beyond words.

4) Matches like these make you accept that it is near impossible to beat Federer in 3 sets on a hard court. 2 sets is far far easier than 3 is and apart from that thrilling loss to Safin almost 3 years ago, Federer has rarely been tested in 5 (Tommy Haas doesn't count in Aus '06 nor does nalbandian in shanghai)

5) At the end of it all, how scary does it seem when; a high quality tour professional has his day out and plays his best tennis in front of a 23,000 home crowd (14 aces, 40 odd winners and a teenage unforced error count?), and loses IN STRAIGHT SETS!!

So feel a bit for Roddick and continue to wonder why Federer doesn't command the same nigh-iconic status that he does globally as compared to Madison Avenue. It just goes to prove that A-Rod (the other one), Peyton and their band of over hyped merry men continue to make one particular world go round.