Roger Federer: Can he bounce back into the winners’ circle at the US Open? – Tennis Special
Former world number one, Roger Federer of Switzerland, enters the 2011 edition of the US Open as the third seed, with lots of speculations about the end of his career.
To many tennis fans, the Swiss maestro is nearing to the end of his illustrious career and there is less left in him to win yet another Grand Slam title. Winner of 16 Grand Slam titles, Federer is proclaimed to be the greatest
tennis player of all times but is he good enough to bag another major title?
The decline of a tennis player is very different to an athlete’s in other form of sports. Considering team sports, a number of examples can be seen where an aging athlete hide his individual performance amongst the combined feat
of his side. He can rely on his smartness and can easily coast towards the team goal with other players doing most of the work. Think of 38-year-old Jason Kidd in the NBA finals this year.
In the power game of tennis, there is no place of hiding or coasting, but a player needs to fight alone for his pride. There are no contracts being made in the world of tennis and players make their living based on the results
of the contests they take part in. Once a tennis player believes he has left nothing in him for winning, he has to quit playing anymore.
Once known to be the ‘Invincible Swiss’, Federer’s form has gone through a drastic downslide in the past few months. The typical Fed aggression has seemed to have faded off in the recent tournaments and the 29-year-old has been
observed to have gone out of steam at some times. Federer hasn’t won a major title since his 2010 Australian Open crown and has clinched merely one singles title in the running year.
A defending champion at the 2011 Australian Open, Federer’s campaign was ended at the hands of current world number one, Novak Djokovic, in the semi-finals. The Swiss avenged his defeat from the Serb by breaking his 41-match winning
streak in the semi-finals of Roland Garros. It appeared as if Federer has got back his winning touch but all the hopes vanished when the Swiss got defeated by his arch rival, Rafael Nadal in four sets in the final of the French Open.
Currently rated at number three in the world rankings, Federer’s most recent Grand Slam defeat came in the quarter-final of Wimbledon Championships last month, when he fell to the hard-hitting world number 15, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga,
in a five-set thriller. Federer’s loss to Tsonga was theorised by many tennis lovers to be the end of his career.
“It’s time for Federer to walk into the sunset...As a fan of his high quality tennis...I cannot bear to see him loose such way , It’s impossible for him to win with such power tennis players playing so well,” said one of the commentators
of the Wimbledon match, which Federer lost after attaining a substantial 2-0 lead.
Federer’s recent Grand Slam losses are not the losses of a soon-to-be-irrelevant tennis player. American tennis legend and newly inducted hall of famer, Andre Agassi, skipped the Grand Slam Down Under and Roland Garros in his year
of retirement, to have a final shot at Wimbledon and the US Open. On the other hand, the Swiss maestro has qualified for 29 straight quarter-finals of the Grand Slam tournaments, without missing a single major.
It will be too early to say that Federer can win the US Open this year, but why can’t he? The Swiss will be seeded third in the Grand Slam and will have to go through either Djokovic or Nadal to get access to the final. All Federer
needs is to play a perfect game against either of the two men to win and he has still got the courage to do it, as he defeated Djokovic in the French Open semis.
Whether or not Federer bags the US Open title, his contests are always a treat to watch. It might be argued that Federer is not the best anymore, but there is a lot more left in the Swiss maestro than people think.
Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in the article are the writer’s own personal views and have nothing to do with bettor.com’s editorial policy.
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