99% of us Fed fans are really happy that he made a hard court semi at his age; especially considering how horrendous his form was at times. He was an escape artist against Millman and Sandgren, which means that the odds were clearly astronomically against him to go the distance. We knew that. That's fine. This tourney will be a happy memory for me; just like Connors in 1991 was at the USO.
Moving forward, I'd like to see Fed use a 2015 Edberg approach to shorten the matches. Federer clearly cannot handle a series of long matches at hard court slams. His body constantly breaks down. Of course Djoker was going to beat Fed here. At hard court slams, Fed has lost to Dimitrov, Tsistipas, Millman, and a broken-down Delpo(this guy has missed so much time due to multiple surgeries). If those guys with a total of 1 slam title can beat Fed, then the AO GOAT was clearly going to beat Fed. The betting odds were 7/1 against Fed beating Djoker. It should have been 20/1. 7/1 underdog seems reasonable for a healthy Fed against Djoker at this event.
There's nothing wrong with hoping for a miracle. This loss doesn't sting one bit. I gave Fed no chance, given his condition entering the match. But that condition is the norm for Federer these days on hard courts. So it's no excuse. It's like saying Federer will breathe air. It goes with the territory. I'm happy that the scoreline wasn't embarrassing.
Overall, I'll take this result. A slam semi is a great result at this stage of Fed's career. Federer has now made 15 semis in the last 17 AO tourneys. That's incredible. I only hope that Fed can enter one more hard court slam semi before he retires.
Congrats to Fed for a job well done. It was a great tourney and it was highly entertaining. I'll continue to follow Fed until his last match. I still love his style of play, even when he's a shell of his best years.
