Roger Federer has failed to advance past the quarter-finals for a second consecutive Grand Slam tournament. The defending champion and top-seeded Federer was beaten by Tomas Berdych 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 on Wednesday.
The shocking upset improves Berdych to 3-8 against Federer all-time, including a recent victory in Miami in March.
The growing trend of Roger losing to players he had previously dominated is continuing and the fact that it is happening on the grass of Wimbledon must be particularly alarming.
Roger Federer
Talk of Federer’s decline has been present since 2008 when he failed to win a Grand Slam until late in the year at the U.S. Open. Then in 2009 after losing the Aussie Open final to Nadal, people really started to wonder if his dominance was wavering. Just when it seemed like that might be the case, Federer rebounded by winning his first French Open and then regaining his Wimbledon crown a year ago. He then lost the U.S. Open final to Del Potro but again bounced back in Australia earlier this year. It seemed liked Federer still had a lot of gas left in the tank.
With back-to-back quarter-final exits from the last two Slams however, the situation is starting to look dire for the world number-two player. He has not won a tournament since his lone Slam down-under and continues to get beat by players like Berdych, Lleyton Hewitt and others that he had owned until the past year.
In his post-match press conference, Federer spoke respectfully towards his opponent but revealed there were some injury issues that affected his play today.
“I think he was a bit more consistent than in the past. I lost to him in Miami this year, where it was a really tight match as well. But from my end, obviously, you know, I’m unhappy with the way I’m playing. I couldn’t play the way I wanted to play. You know, I am struggling with a little bit of a back and a leg issue. That just doesn’t quite allow me to play the way I would like to play. So it’s frustrating, to say the least. Looking forward to some rest anyway.”
Whether the injury aspect was real or imagined we’ll never know for sure. It could be Federer’s way of avoiding questions of his declining stranglehold on the men’s game.
Either way, Wimbledon will have a different champion this year and for the first time since 2002 the finals will not include Roger Federer.
There was something else in Federer’s presser that threw me off-guard. I’m not sure if you caught this, but it seemed a bit harsh. I understand sometimes we say things we could regret, but Federer knows he’s in the public eye. He’s always been a fairly gracious winner, however, he seems quite bitter about being the ‘other guy.’ Here is the excerpt:
Q. Andy Murray is playing a critical match at the moment. Nadal has been having some trouble. What do you think of Andy Murray as a player and do you think this might be his year, given some of the great players are not doing so well?
ROGER FEDERER: The end was what?
Q. I wonder if you think this might be his year, given some of the really threatening players haven’t been doing so well this year.
ROGER FEDERER: Yeah, I mean, true, Rafa played terribly lately; Soderling is not a threat either. He’s got an easy ride to this victory, that’s for sure. Djokovic can’t play tennis anymore it seems like.
Got to make your own work, please. Respect the players. Obviously Andy is a fantastic player and he’s got all the chances to win here. We all know that.
Hi Romana, I think Federer was being sarcastic when he made that statement. I believe he was making a jab at reporters for asking dumb questions. He was trying to say that every player left in the draw had a good chance of taking the title. At least that's my opinion!