Roger's Weakness in his game?

[Applez]

I have noticed during his tight quarterfinal match with Nikolay Davydenko that Roger's weakness in his game is his backhand side.... which brokedown during key moments of the match after Davydenko relentlessly pummeled it with deep hard penetrating groundstrokes

Davydenko was also jerking Roger Federer around the court as the Russian continously attacked that weaker wing of the Swiss number one

Ive never seen Roger that vulnerable and helpless

I would wager that the next time these two will meet...Davydenko will prevail

any thoughts guys?

 

[@wright]

Davydenko played almost as well as anyone I've seen. He still won in 4. Yes, it was close, but he did what he needed to win. I think if Davydenko had played more aggressively and actually went for winners more, he could have pushed it to 5. The problem with his style, like Lleyton Hewitt, is you rely on your opponent to determine how the match plays out. If you live by consistency, you also die by it.

 

[jackson vile]

This is old old AA did the same thing at the US Open and fed just started slicing the back hand instead.

 

[Shabazza]

This is old old AA did the same thing at the US Open and fed just started slicing the back hand instead.

yep this is old news, everybody knows his BH is his weak side and inconsistent at times. The only difference in the match against Davydenko was, that Roger didn't use the slice Bh very often - which surprised me. Normally if the Bh tends to go of, he changes his style and uses mainly the slice, but not this time...don't know why, it was kind of odd

 

[arosen]

Shabazza, it was probably because he believes in his backhand nowadays so much that even if he starts shanking it he still goes for it regardless. He said it himself, he no longer feels his BH is unreliable or weak. Sure doesnt look like it isnt, but he thinks its OK these days.

 

[AJK1]

I wouldn't mind a weak backhand like Federer!!

 

[AeonT]

I have noticed during his tight quarterfinal match with Nikolay Davydenko that Roger's weakness in his game is his backhand side.... which brokedown during key moments of the match after Davydenko relentlessly pummeled it with deep hard penetrating groundstrokes

Davydenko was also jerking Roger Federer around the court as the Russian continously attacked that weaker wing of the Swiss number one

Ive never seen Roger that vulnerable and helpless

I would wager that the next time these two will meet...Davydenko will prevail

any thoughts guys?

Weakness in Fed's game? Are you serious? Roger won that match in 4 sets!
Champions always find a way to win even if they are not playing their best!

 

[Shabazza]

Shabazza, it was probably because he believes in his backhand nowadays so much that even if he starts shanking it he still goes for it regardless. He said it himself, he no longer feels his BH is unreliable or weak. Sure doesnt look like it isnt, but he thinks its OK these days.

more confidence in is bh wouldn't be bad, that's right. Maybe it's something he and Roche are working on and it's a transitional period?!

 

[AeonT]

I wouldn't mind a weak backhand like Federer!!

exactly! LOL

 

[tennissavy]

Roger Federer has the best one handed backhand I have ever seen. With that being said, it is still his shortcoming. Attacking that backhand is how Safin beat him in Australia last year and how Nalbandian beat him in the Masters final. The strategy was simple and effective- run him wide on his forehand side and hit hard to his backhand. If you are strong enough and consistent enough, he will either make an error or hit a weak reply with his backhand.

 

[akj27]

I wouldn't mind a weak backhand like Federer!!

Yeah, Im sure Safin, or Nalbandian wouldn't mind either LOL

 

[Rickson]

I have noticed during his tight quarterfinal match with Nikolay Davydenko that Roger's weakness in his game is his backhand side.... which brokedown during key moments of the match after Davydenko relentlessly pummeled it with deep hard penetrating groundstrokes

Davydenko was also jerking Roger Federer around the court as the Russian continously attacked that weaker wing of the Swiss number one

Ive never seen Roger that vulnerable and helpless

I would wager that the next time these two will meet...Davydenko will prevail

any thoughts guys?

Roger, not unlike most people, has a weaker backhand than his forehand. Just because it's weaker doesn't mean it's weak because to this day, I've never seen anyone pass better from the backhand side than Roger Federer. Federer has a good backhand and while he prefers to hit forehands (who doesn't?), I wouldn't count on him losing matches just because someone decides to pick on his backhand; if anything, I can see Roger getting into a groove with his backhand.

 

[doriancito]

roger is used to winning every point, game, set and match, well he may accept to lose a couple of games or maybe 3 or 4, but when he is losing to the oponen and the rival is 5 games ahead he gets pissed off and thinks how far that number 5 is from him and this frustrates him and makes him lose the whole set

 

[Shabazza]

Roger, not unlike most people, has a weaker backhand than his forehand. Just because it's weaker doesn't mean it's weak because to this day, I've never seen anyone pass better from the backhand side than Roger Federer. Federer has a good backhand and while he prefers to hit forehands (who doesn't?), I wouldn't count on him losing matches just because someone decides to pick on his backhand; if anything, I can see Roger getting into a groove with his backhand.

at least 2 come in mind Guga and Gasquet

 

[DanEd]

his volleys and touch are not awesome they are overrated his bh drop shot sucks his forehand dropshot is good but it is from being great
his second serve is not great

 

[ACE of Hearts]

DanEd=Hater, idiot.

 

[DanEd]

i am not a hater u are a moron i am just being objective

DanEd=Hater, idiot.

 

[ACE of Hearts]

Ur comments are not accurate, that is all!

 

[idle_fire]

DanEd=Hater, idiot.

Yiu're right
DanEd is hater and idiot so not accurate as well.

How could he said that, Federer never loose one match this year. (except kooyong=just streching games before AO)
Federer has his best and worst in his games so others. so don't make decision just to look from one match.

 

[DanEd]

your an ******* i did not say anything bad this thread is to list federer´s

weakness and i think his weakness are the ones I listed

his second serve is good but not great I ve seen playes like

kiefer, agassi, davydenko two days ago or nalbadnian punish his second serve

pretty easily

in fact federer himself said that shot and his volleys are the parts of his game

he wants to improve the most

his volleys are good but not as great as many say why do u think he plays from the

baseline the most time even in wimbledon . he never goes to the net very

much when playing against good servers such as nalbandian,agassi or hewitt

for example see ur matches against davydenko two day ago and nadal (miami

final last year) or his matches in doha his volleys were pathetic in those

matches

his bh drops sucks really, in fact he barely try to hit one his fh dropshot is

good but it is far from being awesome. players like coria,ferrero,gaudio

nalbandian and moya have a much better drop shot than federer

Yiu're right
DanEd is hater and idiot so not accurate as well.

How could he said that, Federer never loose one match this year. (except kooyong=just streching games before AO)
Federer has his best and worst in his games so others. so don't make decision just to look from one match.

 

[D-man]

federer's backhand is certainly not weak, nor are his dropshots which imo are up there, though he doesn't use them as often as some, his weakness are 2 things:
1) he does have off times where he especially shanks a lot
2) his other "weakness" is when once in a blue moon the other player plays outrageous

 

[fastdunn]

World is drooling over the greatness of Federer but ...

OK. All commentators and public praise how good roger is but
he does have weakness which is not up to his high high standard.

1. His backhand (as good as it can get but he lose it sometimes)
2. Net game (averaging about 60% success in this AO)
3. 2nd serve

* one glitch in his, best-in-the-history, ultra, super-forehand:
surprizingly not so *best-in-history-good* when hit on the run.

Nalbaldian repeatedly exploits his backhand and draw Federer to hit
forehand on the run with his strong 2 handed BH down-the line.
Nalbaldian also attack 2nd serve and jerks him around forcing him to
hit groundies on the run.

Safin did exactly what Nalbandian does in 2005 AO.

Still *very* slim window of oppotunity because Federer still has the best
baseline game in the world (as of now).
But I think his net game and 2nd serve is more of problem.
If someone like Nadal can neutralize Federer's baseline
game in the future, he does not really have much answer.

That's why he is working on net game and 2nd serve
with Tony Roche, reportedly....

 

[prestige18]

baghdatis has a great backhand. if he gets federer into backhand to backhand rallies, he could win a few points then the crowd would just pump him up further and further and he might even win

 

[smittysan89]

Yeah, Im sure Safin, or Nalbandian wouldn't mind either LOL

Safin IMO has the best bh and tennis right now hands down. His two handed backhand is lethal especially down the line. Spin, Power, and Control all in one.

IMO Gasquet has a better one hander than federer. His bh alone could get him into the top10

 

[jings]

So we've established that Federer may not be perfect after all. His b/h is his weaker wing but it's hard to argue much more than that as he's winning most of his titles from the back of the court which logically implies his ground game is as good if not better than anyones out there. If you want to go after Fed at the back of the court your odds improve if you target his b/h but it guarantees you nothing. He's improved the shot considerably over the last 2 years and can hit up the line far better now and it is far more consistent under a two fisted barrage in a b/h to b'h exchange. He does hit with enomous amounts of spin which gives him wonderful margin of error on court but is extremely demanding in execution terms. To my mind he shanks as much on the f/h as he does the b/h oftentimes. It is not the best b/h out there but it's not a liability either.

It should have come as no surprise I would have thought that Haas and Davydenko provided some stiff opposition. Both are former / current top 5 players and in form and like Melbourne. In both instances it has been Fed's opponent playing very well that has troubled him - something which you could equally apply to Gasquet, Safin etc from last year (with the exception of RG when I think Fed just didn't show up basically). Davydenko was dictating large parts of this match in the rallies and Fed was having to play some insane defence at times, a much underrated part of his game. To me the Davydenko match specifically came down to serve. Fed really struggled and was actually broken 5 times, whilst only breaking Davydenko 4 times. Both were pretty even on overall serving stats which is rare in a Fed match. More than anything I think it showed how troublesome Davydenko was being and was getting into Fed's head (he was shouting much more than usual). In the end he found a way, despite having 6 points against him to go 1-2 sets down. In the end you can have all the skills you like but if you can't grind things out you wont' cut it.

So sure he has weaknesses, he's going to lose matches, miss shots, need to improve parts of his game - which player doesn't. The fact is though that he does it all better than anyone else at the moment and if he brings his A game on court I don't think there's anyone out there to compete with him. If he beats Kiefer, which again will be a tough match as the German is in form, the Baggy final would be quite a match I think.

 

[supremebeing]

Ok so lets lay it out, his back hand sucks, forehand on the run is sub par, second serve weak, volleys lack technique. Not to mention the lack of a back hand drop shot. Man this guy is bad, really bad.

 

[tonysk83]

Davydenko could of easily won that 3rd set which would of put him up 2 sets to one, but he never came to net. Numerous times of Feds short shots he was at the service line but would back peddle and go for a typical cross court forehand. Davy should of won that match if he would of came to the net some more. How many set points did he have? like 9 or something. Who knows how he would of done in the 4th or even 5th set, but he was really rolling. He wouldn't go for any big shots or net runs though.

 

[jings]

Strangely I think Davydenko had more net points than Fed over the match ... I'd have to check though. Most extraordinary thing about that Davydenko match was that you had the world number 5 in a quarter final and he still hasn't got a clothing deal - well not that was visible to me anyway.

 

[nkhera1]

Its hard to hit good running forehands for any player though I can't specifically say that Federer's is below average which I'm betting it isn't. His backhand slice is amazing though he somtimes tends to shank his topspin backhand but it is really good except for the occasional rut he gets into. Everybody's 2nd serve can be attacked and Nalbandian is a good serve returner, so with that being said Fed has a pretty good 2nd serve. Fed's volleys are pretty good but i think he uses his arms to much instead of trying to get into good position which tends to hurt him once in a while. On rebound ace the ball bounces high so its not the best surface to volley on.

 

[jings]

Just read this on the AO site, taken a while for them to post this. Very interesting insight into the Davydenko match.

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/news/interviews/2006-01-26/200601261138272343895.html

 

[AJK1]

The only weakness Federer has at the moment i believe is his ankle. I seriously don't think it is 100% but obviously no-one is letting on in his camp about the seriousness of it. He hasn't played nearly as well since he has been wearing the ankle brace. If anyone knows about tennis around here they will know that court movement and confidence in your legs/feet allows you to hit better shots, and therefore play better. Time will tell.

 

[crazylevity]

Someone earlier on said that Federer has weak backhand drop shots.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING.

His backhand drop shots are so good some spin backwards into the net upon landing. He doesn't use the forehand drop shot, but his forehand is so fantastic he doesn't need to. Watch his USO 2005 QF with Nalbandian, TMC 2005 against Ljubicic...plenty of amazing drop shots.

 

[znawfal]

I believe he has very few weakness ... I have come to conclude that the guy's major weakness is his issues with concentration (seriously) ...

(Possibly winning too many matches can get boring)

He always needs to lose a set or fall down in a tie-break to focus better .,..

I have seen him come back and win 6-0 in many many matching after losing a close set

All his comebacks in a tiebreak when he's down 3 or 4 match points --- amazing

He needs to really focus and concetrate and stop losing interest during a match ... amazing

 

[Cigo]

yep this is old news, everybody knows his BH is his weak side and inconsistent at times. The only difference in the match against Davydenko was, that Roger didn't use the slice Bh very often - which surprised me. Normally if the Bh tends to go of, he changes his style and uses mainly the slice, but not this time...don't know why, it was kind of odd

It was because Davydenko was able to get very low to virtually every slice Federer hit. This is usually very difficult to do consistently while on the run, or even in less rushed positions, so most are not able to do it that often. Topspin gave better results, well the tactic that involves topspin backhands among other things.