When is it officially time for Roger Federer to start worrying? The once infallible world No. 1 is Major-less since the very start of 2010 and looks more vulnerable than ever.
While he’s still posting results that most Tour players can only dream of, it’s a significant decline from the Roger we have grown to know and love.
Until today, Federer had never dropped a set against Jurgen Melzer.
The pair had played on three previous occasions (twice in Grand Slams) with the Swiss champ prevailing comfortably in each meeting. Funnily enough, all three matches fell in 2010 which is somewhat of an oddity considering the experience of both players.
The most interesting stat from this match was the 0/7 break point conversions from Federer’s side of the net.
The positive that Roger and his fans can take from this is that he’s certainly creating opportunities for himself, but his inexplicable failure to close out is a worrying sign.
Conversely, Melzer saw five break points and seized two – which was enough for a 6-4 6-4 triumph.
While it’s easy (and probably fair) to chalk this down as an anomaly, it’s something we wouldn’t have seen in recent years. When there’s blood in the water, Federer is usually ruthless in seizing his opportunity.
In a way, Roger Federer is probably a victim of his own complete and utter domination of world tennis. We have been so conditioned to seeing him conquer all that lies in front of him, we recoil in shock when things don’t go to plan.
In the previous round against Marin Cilic, ‘FedEx’ was 2/4 on break points (50%) while in Round 1, the number was an even better 4/7 (57%) in a ruthless domination of Philipp Kohlschreiber. So while today’s duck egg is poor by anyone’s standards, it’s probably an aberration in the context of his recent results.
But despite this, Federer doesn’t look to be the same player he once was. There’s little doubting that the 30-year-old Swiss master is on the decline, having rapidly been overtaken by the likes of Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic (and regularly losing to guys who don’t occupy a consistently elite ranking).
Is he finished? Of course not. But is he the same reliable Roger that has dominated tennis for the last decade? Absolutely not.
Ask any number of tennis fans what Roger’s problem is and you’ll get any number of answers.
“His forehand needs to be flatter and harder.”
“He’s mentally shot by the new age of players coming through,”
“He’s too error-prone on the backhand side.”
“He just needs to stop playing on clay.”
“He must split from coach Paul Annacone.”
“He has different life priorities now that he has kids.”
Some may be right, some may be off the mark but few can argue with any degree of confidence that Roger Federer is likely to re-capture the form that had us in awe while he sat undisputed at the top of the game.
But still… not many people on this planet can be doing their job ‘poorly’ and be ranked No.3 in the world.
Let’s hope there’s some fight in this old dog yet.
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