US Open marks end of an era for Roger Federer
The heavens opened in New York yesterday, perhaps to mourn the end of an era for this is the first year since 2003 that the US Open final will be staged without Roger Federer being a part of it.
It wasn’t as though the five-time US Open champion wasn’t without his chances in his three hour and 44 minute semi-final against Novak Djokovic either, but the Serb cracked a pair of forehand winners to save two match points in the fifth set and was ultimately rewarded for his courageous play with the chance to contest the decider against top seed Rafael Nadal.
Asked how disappointing the semi-final loss was after failing to convert two match points, Federer told reporters in Flushing Meadows that the feeling was “somewhat empty at the end because you have tried everything, and maybe it was luck. Maybe it was he played well. Maybe you didn't pick the right shot; maybe he did”.
They are two points that proved the difference between a Federer-Nadal final (which would have been the two rivals' first match against one another at the US Open) and final between Djokovic and Nadal, as the Serb went on to claim a victory that he was happy to liken to the feeling of winning the Australian Open title in 2008.
So while Djokovic knuckles down for the rain-delayed US Open final, Federer is now in the unusual position of spectator. But it’s one the 29-year-old may have to get used to, with the days when pencilling Federer’s name into the final at a major as a matter of course are now seemingly fast fading.
By the time the Australian Open begins next January, it will have been a full 12 months since the 16-time Grand Slam champion has appeared in the final of a major, having lost in the quarter-finals of the French Open and Wimbledon this year after arriving at each tournament as defending champion.
If he doesn’t get there, or loses in the decider, it will be the first time since Federer won his first Grand Slam title, at Wimbledon in 2003, that the Swiss star has not been a reigning Grand Slam champion.
As it is, 2010 is the first year since 2003 that Federer has only featured in the final of one of the majors. Perhaps it’s also worth noting that this isn’t about Rafael Nadal usurping Federer’s mantle as the world’s best player; the two rivals haven’t faced one another at a major since the final of the 2009 Australian Open, which Nadal won.
Since then, Federer has won three Grand Slam titles (Roland Garros and Wimbledon 2009, and this year’s Australian Open) but his four losses at the majors have come against other challengers to the pair’s dominance. Juan Martin del Potro got the ball rolling in the final of last year’s US Open; Robin Soderling claimed the upset at the French Open this year; Tomas Berdych shocked Wimbledon when he ousted the defending champion in the quarters; and now Djokovic has prevailed in Flushing Meadows.
There was a time when if Federer wasn’t winning the title, he was losing to Nadal, and that was usually at Roland Garros. Indeed, in the four seasons stretching from 2005 to 2008, Nadal defeated Federer five times at Grand Slams, with his two other defeats coming at Melbourne Park, when eventual champion Marat Safin won their 2005 semi-final and Djokovic repeated the dose as he went on to win the 2008 title.
Federer, for all his formidable talents, now seems to have come back to the field.
It was only in August that Federer told the BBC that he believed he could win at least 20 Grand Slams before he retires.
As he misses a major final yet again, and as Nadal peaks to reach his first US Open final, it’s a target that now seems increasingly ambitious for the former world No. 1.
It is not yet the time to write off Federer’s future Grand Slam title chances – it’s hard to imagine there won’t at least be a couple more – but it is perhaps time to lower our expectations of how often we can expect to see him holding the silverware aloft at the majors in the remainder of his career.
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