It will be the coached against the coachless in the men’s singles final at Wimbledon. Roger Federer will have his team around him, of course, but they do not include an official coach while the man of the moment — other than Andy Roddick himself — will be sitting in the American player’s box seats, hoping that he can carry out the pre-match plan as expertly as he did against Andy Murray. 

Larry Stefanki, one time mentor to Marcelo Rios, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Fernando Gonzalez and even John McEnroe,  is not giving away any secrets about how to beat Federer but he was still reflecting on his man’s great semifinal performance after a practice sessions at the All England Club today. 

“After losing to Murray in Doha, when he charged the net the whole match, going in on everything and getting beaten 6-4, 6-2 we threw that plan out the window,” said Stefanki who talks at about the rate Roddick serves. ” ‘You’re not doing that again’, I told him, so we had a different strategy and Andy was able to execute perfectly. Serving more into the body was one thing we agreed on because you have to try something different against someone who returns so well. And not being afraid to wait for the right moment to go in. And mixing it up. The drop shots were great. He’s never used that so effectively before.”

But Stefanki is under no illusions how close it was.

“Listen, two or three points could have changed the whole match, the whole outcome,” he admitted. “That volley on set point in the third — he mis-hit it anyway and it could easily have gone into the net. If Murray had won that set I think he would have won the match. And the three breaks points Andy saved from 0-40 in the first game of the fourth — any one of those to Murray and he could have been through that set in flash — boom, different match.”

Stefanki is a big admirer of Murray and thought seriously about taking up an offer to coach the young Scot when he was still a teenager. Having spent eighteen months helping Tim Henman, he is used to the British environment but the travelling required to have done the job would have taken him away from his southern California base and his young family for too long and he wasn’t prepared to do that. But he feels Murray needs to be listening to those who feel he needs to be more aggressive.

“He doesn’t make the transition from defense to attack often enough or aggressively enough and at this level you have to,” says Stefanki. “Standing that far back on a worn grass court is not going to get the job done.”

It will be fascinating to see how Roddick handles the biggest challenge of his career on Sunday.  He’s been there twice before, in a Wimbledon final with Federer across the net, but there is no question that he is better equipped to handle it now. And, after consulting his coach, he will most certainly have a plan. How the five-time champion deals with it will decide the outcome.