Then Federer mis-hit a backhand that found a line, got to 30-all. “I absolutely believed he could win the match.” “He had made believers out of most people in the stadium (at that point),” said his coach, Darren Cahill. He was mixing his groundstrokes, belting angled returns, giving Federer pace on one shot, taking it away on the next. The seventh-seeded Agassi, a two-time Open champion, seemed on the cusp of a third title after squaring the match at one set apiece and going up a break for 4-2 in the third.Īgassi won the first two points for 30-love, two points from 5-2. “I still can’t believe how well I’ve been playing over the last few years and that it just keeps going on,” said Federer, who is 70-3 in 2005, and has now won all six of his Grand Slam finals. “He’s the best I ever played against,” said Agassi, the oldest Open finalist in 31 years.Ĭonsidering the length and quality of Agassi’s storied rivalry with Pete Sampras, it was no small compliment.

Federer didn’t let him get that far, finishing off his elder, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1, doing it with a stunning stretch in which he won 22 of 27 points, smacking winners off both wings and putting unrelenting pressure on Agassi. Thirty-five-year-old Andre Agassi, the oldest man at the Open, didn’t have to play five sets Sunday, the way he did the three previous rounds.

He crashed a coronation-in-waiting, rewrote a storybook ending that 23,352 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium were pulling for with a fervor more typically found in the bleachers in the Bronx. Open title Sunday night, or capture his 23rd consecutive tournament final without a defeat. Top-ranked Roger Federer didn’t just defend his U.S. The wall came in the form of a sublime 24-year-old Swiss with a fat yellow headband and a game as fluid as hot syrup. It happened as dusk fell over the National Tennis Center, and over the skyline that changed forever four years ago Sunday. NEW YORK – Seven rounds and 14 days into his 20th U.S.

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