{"id":57509,"date":"2026-08-26T02:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T02:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/57509\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T02:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T02:40:16","slug":"roger-federer-returns-to-the-us-open-for-an-exhibition-against-andy-roddick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/57509\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Federer returns to the US Open for an exhibition against Andy Roddick"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer returned<\/a> 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\u2019s decade and a half of dominance featuring 20 Grand Slam titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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 \u201903, credited the fans and Federer for his return.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes down to Roger,\u201d Roddick said. \u201cObviously 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

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/a><\/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":56673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[119,843,84,2034,118,50,840,28,1646,463],"class_list":["post-57509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-andre-agassi","tag-andy-roddick","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-roger-federer","tag-sports","tag-switzerland","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57509","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=57509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}