NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer returned to Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday night to play one last match for fun against longtime rival and friend Andy Roddick.<\/p>\n
The event billed as \u201cAn Icon Returns to New York\u201d packed the stands full of fans there to watch the 45-year-old from Switzerland face Roddick \u2014 soon to be 44 \u2014 in a prime time exhibition. Many wore hats with the distinctive \u201cRF\u201d logo that became commonplace in the sport during Federer’s decade and a half of dominance featuring 20 Grand Slam titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s great to be back in New York,\u201d Federer said. \u201cI have incredible memories, obviously, of this court, of the fans here, of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federer reminisced about visiting for the first time to play juniors in 1998 and reaching the final. Three years later, his debut on center court was a straight-sets loss to Andre Agassi. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe smashed me 6-1, 6-2, 6-4,\u201d Federer said. \u201cI had no shot. And I was like, \u2018OK, not so easy, not fast, Roger.\u2019 But, still, I\u2019ll remember this center court forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2005, Federer defeated Agassi to win the U.S. Open for the first time of five in a row through \u201909.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one against Andre, I think, was extremely special: playing a legend that was coming towards the end of his career \u2014 that we had a chance to play against each other,\u201d Federer said. \u201cAnd every player I was able to play against in the finals here also was a U.S. Open champion. It\u2019s been an incredible run. I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roddick, who won the tournament in ’03, credited the fans and Federer for his return.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt comes down to Roger,\u201d Roddick said. “Obviously we played a bunch and he beat me a bunch, but we were always able to navigate a friendship through the middle of our careers that\u2019s lasted till now and will hopefully last forever. It\u2019s just about showing up when Roger asks you to.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer returned to Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[569,123,463],"class_list":["post-57480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}