Federer Fans: Is now the official beginning of the end?

[Pheasant]

I think that the USO will tell the whole story. Federer hadn't played in 6 weeks. So it was his first tourney back where his play was greatly hindered by rain delays and rust. At least I hope this is the case.

Remember in 2017 when Federer lost to #116 Donskoy in Dubai? Federer also has 7 Dubai titles, including titles in 2014-2015, just like Cincinnati. Federer is also 3-1 vs Djokovic at Dubai, just like Cinci. Federer is 46-9 at Cinci, and 48-6 in Dubai. How about last year when Fed lost to a 302nd ranked dinosaur named Haas on grass, Fed's best surface?

I think that we'll have a much better idea of where Federer is at when the USO rolls around. If Fed gets dumped before the semis, then we'll know that his free fall is here to stay. But he might go deep until losing a tight 4 or 5 setter to Nadal or Djoker, which I think would be a best-case scenario for him.

 

[Tennisgods]

Today’s final was nothing short of a fantastic Djokovic display. Scintillatingly dispatching Roger in straight sets, was never in doubt in my opinion.

As for Roger, hard to take any positives out of today other than his serve. Poor on groundstrokes and most of the time wasn’t clinical enough on volleys.

I ask you, Federer fans, is he finished? Is this the beginning of the end for Roger Federer? It’s been said numerous times over and over, and he proved everyone wrong. But this was his pet masters, as Wimbledon was also his pet slam. He’s now lost both of them, to Djokovic (well, he lost to Anderson at Wimbledon but still).

At the age of 37, is this finally going to be it for Roger Federer?

Scintillating Djokovic? The hell were you smoking my friend? He was consistently alright with the odd flash of very good. Federer couldn’t keep it in court and still won 8 games out of 20 played. If you want scintillating, that bagel in the 2012 Cincy final would work.

Way overboard on Djokovic’s performance yesterday.

 

[Tennisgods]

Today’s final was nothing short of a fantastic Djokovic display. Scintillatingly dispatching Roger in straight sets, was never in doubt in my opinion.

As for Roger, hard to take any positives out of today other than his serve. Poor on groundstrokes and most of the time wasn’t clinical enough on volleys.

I ask you, Federer fans, is he finished? Is this the beginning of the end for Roger Federer? It’s been said numerous times over and over, and he proved everyone wrong. But this was his pet masters, as Wimbledon was also his pet slam. He’s now lost both of them, to Djokovic (well, he lost to Anderson at Wimbledon but still).

At the age of 37, is this finally going to be it for Roger Federer?

In answer to your question, yeah it could be it. So what? 37 years old.

Official beginning of the end would be that awful grass court season by the way.

Of course, the field is still pretty bad so he’ll make semis and finals for at least another year or so, and if Djokovic goes walkabout again and Rafa gets injured, Fed will stroll on to court and dispatch Cilic i’m sure.

 

[Eren]

Djokovic had a really tough draw with long matches. Federer could have been more fresh coming in the final. Both players were not at their best. It may not have favoured Federer outright but not clearly favouring any of them.
Also the court speed favours Federer at Cincy.

I was talking about being favoured in the sense that Djokovic had the confidence from winning Wimbledon and had the upwards sloping momentum while Federer was on his way down after the AO. They met when Federer was going down and Djokovic was going up.

Having said that, I agree that Federer's pathetic display was not entirely due to momentum so to say. He played awful and pathetic at Cincy 2018 in general and in the finals in particular. There is no single excuse for his level of play in that final, not age, nothing. Djokovic deserved to win it and Federer should have made it much more of a match and needs to grow a pair against Djokovic.

 

[Terry Tibbs]

I argued after his Oz Open win that then would have been the right time to retire and got slated on here by many. I felt it was a somewhat fortunate slam with the draw, opponents playing poorly against him and his main threats falling by the way side and also felt that his level wasn't what it was last year. I thought it would be good for him to retire given that a decline was looking likely. His level is still good enough to reach the latter stages of big tournaments but with Djokovic now back and Nadal's form, I just don't see him winning tournaments anymore. I know he loves playing and the tour and everything but just hope for his sake that he doesn't play for too long and embarrass himself.

 

[Terry Tibbs]

5th loss of the year.

Loss to Djoker no big deal. It was expected and anyone expecting Fed to definitely beat him is insane .

Losses to Coric and Kokkinakis was painful, but he was close to winning both. Loss to Delpo and Anderson was after having MP

He is still serving Great but return game has deteriorated big time after Rotterdam .IW was the first tournament that we saw the crapola returns . He is not even able to put simple Slice returns into the court on second serves for most of the time .

I think this is more because of his infrequent match play. No rhythm at all.

Down to infrequent match play? Possibly but he did have 6 months off and came straight back and won the Oz Open playing sublime tennis. Perhaps the way he played was largely down to him having no expectation of himself to do well in the tournament which enabled him to play more freely. This was particularly evident in how he was stepping into that top spin backhand in such an attacking way. This year he seems to have gone back to a more passive sliced/blocked return of serve.

 

[FHtennisman]

Fed played a better and more consistent level at 2018 AO than he did in 2017 AO. The peaks were better in 2017 but he didn't have a mental walkabout this year until the final where the burden of a zoning Cilic and the weight of #20 was almost too much.

 

[Alchemy-Z]

part of me is glad he is still playing-
part of me would have been happy to see him retire at his 20th Slam win and go out on top -

I think his slam count is mostly what he wants to protect so he his trying to fend off Nadal and Novak as anyone else is decades away from catching him.

with all 3 getting up in age I could see a Del Potro resurgence in the next 2 to 3 years if he can stay healthy

Murray it's hard to say I think he has another Wimbledon in him passion wise ...but we have to see if his body will allow it.

 

[icedevil0289]

Fed played a better and more consistent level at 2018 AO than he did in 2017 AO. The peaks were better in 2017 but he didn't have a mental walkabout this year until the final where the burden of a zoning Cilic and the weight of #20 was almost too much.

I think its kind of tough to compare just because of where he was coming into AO 2017 and then where he was coming into AO 2018. He came into AO 2017, ranked no.17 and after a 6 month break. I think inconsistent play was somewhat expected atleast imo. I do think to an extent people really exaggerate his level play throughout the tournament as if he was playing top notch the entire time. I mean I've seen someone say its the best he played since 2008 or w/e which to me is laughable. Like you said he had really high peaks but I wouldn't say he was consistently amazing.

 

[mike danny]

I argued after his Oz Open win that then would have been the right time to retire and got slated on here by many. I felt it was a somewhat fortunate slam with the draw, opponents playing poorly against him and his main threats falling by the way side and also felt that his level wasn't what it was last year. I thought it would be good for him to retire given that a decline was looking likely. His level is still good enough to reach the latter stages of big tournaments but with Djokovic now back and Nadal's form, I just don't see him winning tournaments anymore. I know he loves playing and the tour and everything but just hope for his sake that he doesn't play for too long and embarrass himself.

You assume Nadal and Djokovic will be playing amazingly for years to come. They are not spring chicken either, you know.

 

[mike danny]

part of me is glad he is still playing-
part of me would have been happy to see him retire at his 20th Slam win and go out on top -

I think his slam count is mostly what he wants to protect so he his trying to fend off Nadal and Novak as anyone else is decades away from catching him.

with all 3 getting up in age I could see a Del Potro resurgence in the next 2 to 3 years if he can stay healthy

Murray it's hard to say I think he has another Wimbledon in him passion wise ...but we have to see if his body will allow it.

Novak is not catching Fed. Nadal is his only worry.

 

[JacksonColt]

He is not going anywhere anytime soon, at least for a couple of years. Total overreaction.

 

[FHtennisman]

I think its kind of tough to compare just because of where he was coming into AO 2017 and then where he was coming into AO 2018. He came into AO 2017, ranked no.17 and after a 6 month break. I think inconsistent play was somewhat expected atleast imo. I do think to an extent people really exaggerate his level play throughout the tournament as if he was playing top notch the entire time. I mean I've seen someone say its the best he played since 2008 or w/e which to me is laughable. Like you said he had really high peaks but I wouldn't say he was consistently amazing.

One area where we can compare is how close he was standing to the baseline on rallies in both years. For AO 18, he was definitely standing closer and didn't really budge off until the final when he was being overpowered by Cilic for some periods but even then it wasn't consistently. In 2017 AO, he was quite willing to go a few feet behind the baseline to give himself more time to wind up on his strokes, particularly the FH to go for more winners. In fact, I think there was a video made by Patrick Mouratogulu (not sure how to pronounce his surname) where he showed that Fed was standing further behind the baseline in that famous 5th set vs Rafa compared to earlier on in the match.