Yeah at this point I think it's very likely he makes it to 2020 and from then on it's a lot harder to see him keep going.
He won the last Grand Slam he played, and he's not immediately gonna give up if he doesn't win the next 3 or something, so quitting in 2019 isn't really on the cards and I imagine he wants to be in Tokyo, although he's probably a very long shot.
On the other hand, Federer is definitely playing worse than in 2017, and there will be a point where he can't sustain the training and playing load required to be consistent, good and fresh enough to play 7 Bo5 matches. He'll get too reliant on his serve against lesser opponents, which increases the amount of tiebreaks and variance, and which will snowball cause he can't really afford to waste much energy.
After the Sunshine Double and now Halle, I have a hard time seeing him win another Grand Slam on HC. The circumstances of '17 won't happen again, and I think he got off extremely lucky in with how easily he could breeze to the final. Add in that Djokovic will be in the mix once more, Murray perhaps as well, and that it's inevitable that young players will get better as well, useless as they are, and I think Wimbly 2019 is perhaps the last one where he'll have a good shot. After that I think it may be more about not giving up than actually be in it to win it.
It could actually be interesting to see how his stats develop per tournament compared to last year. His return stats are up this year on HC, but that's because he's been playing way easier opponents on HC this year.
Actually, it might be really interesting to do some analysis of his stats throughout all years, and to do that for other big name players as well. Cause to me it seems like his stats in 2004-2007 weren't that much higher than in 2011-2012 and some other years, it's just that he was the only one that was that high.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, yeah. I also feel he is playing considerably worse all year, but it has been a general decline since winning Wimbledon 2017 even with some great patches of play still in Shanghai. I'm not sure if it's a drop in form because of being one year older. I simply think that in 2017 he was really excited to go back on court, got even more excited as he surprised himself and won so many matches, even laying the hammer on Rafa. I think it has everything to do with momentum, and you could just see how exciting 2017 was for him, winning everything without being expected to up to a certain point of course. That made him both loose and clutch, he could swing freely, his focus was on point.
Since then there have been some back problems, expectations were very high again being the favourite for almost everything, the excitement of that 2017 push is gone (as much he clearly still loves playing)...all this seems to kind of normalise his level again for this point in his career after a freak peak in the first half of last year, including that "neo-backhand" that hasn't really popped up in a while. That's kind of how AO 2018 felt for me as well, a normalised level that showed in the final when Cilic actually started to play tough, but due to the easy draw prior to it didn't show in the results, similar to IW 2018 only he didn't win it that time.
He is now coasting more on a closer-to-base level which will always be high no matter what with the talent that he has, but will cause a few more losses against opponents that play him tough. Depending on whom he plays, he can keep winning slams as long as he's healthy, I'm sure of that. But that higher level of 2017 1st half, I don't ever see that coming back.
Concerning the 2004-2007 to 2011-2012 comparison, I do think his return stats were better (well, moreso 2004-2006 than 2007), but in that case I think there were:
A) Generally more good servers in 2011-2012
B) Better baseline play making him a little better in clutch moments.
People tend to think Fed only dished out straight set beatdowns in 2004-2007, but he didn't. Some tournaments, sure, but there were also plenty of ones where he lost quite a few sets. I think in 2006, maybe 2005 as well, he also had a ton of close 3-setters in Halle, for example. The difference is that he won the most important ones almost always in that period, contrary to 2011-2012 (although if you think about it, a 135-24 W/L record for those two years combined is still seriously good). If you win a match 6-4 in the deciding set, you'll get similar stats to one where you lost it with the same score, but it makes a huge difference in the end. So stats can be similar without having similar win-loss records.
