Aspects of Federer's Game Failing Him

[Cormorant]

The Swiss had a break point in the fourth against Stak, on a second serve coming in at 86mph. But he'd lost so much confidence in his return at that stage, he impotently sliced it back and let Sergiy right into the point. His ROS has been an issue for some time, yet it's scarcely been more evident than against the man who's retired at Wimbledon three times.

 

[spinovic]

No, he actually used to be much more aggressive from the baseline than he is now, especially off the FH side, these days most of his FH winners are set up by his serve, no longer will he come up with a ridiculous FH winner out of nowhere during a neutral rally or pummel any semi attackable ball with anywhere the same authority he used to.

If anything since say 2010 he started to rely a lot on more on point construction than pure shotmaking/talent.

+1 on the ridiculous FH winner from nowhere. That used to be the biggest pleasure from watching Federer. You could never look away. You never knew when he would hit some amazing shot because he could seemingly do it at any moment from any spot on the court.

As for talk of his serve - I think he has struggled more with the serve this year, but I also think the earlier than normal exits have decreased the # of matches he's played, thus his ace count is down.

Generally speaking, Federer has the best service game of the top players. His service game is most definitely offensive. His return game is too defensive I think, but not his serve.

 

[roberttennis54]

The most obvious thing to me is his movement to his forehand side - he seems half a step slower and it leads to more UE from his biggest weapon.

The first thing to go for Federer was a little bit of explosiveness on the forehand. In certain matches it was still there, but from mid 2007 you could notice the slight difference.

The next big thing was his first serve return. Federer was a bit like Murray. Part of the trouble playing him is he got to so many returns back into play. So the server felt constant pressure. 2008 was a terrible year due to illness, but by around 2010 there was a huge difference in the quality of his returns.

These were the first two signs of his decline.