Will Roger Federer come back to his old self?

Question

A terrible year so far, not winning a grand slam or masters yet, early exits in tournaments, losing to Roddick, losing to Simon yesterday... will Federer come back next year strong?

Even though im a big FED fan, i think its doubtful :(

because he is nearly 27 and Nadal and Djokovic are guna keep getting better. Fed's confidence must be near-shattered...

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

yeah. It will happen. I think all the negative press attacking him is affecting his decision making and his confidence. He's beating other 20 year olds (yesterday not included, sigh), so age is not the factor.  Look at Agassi and Pete, they were beating 20 year olds at 30.  I think the #1 problem is bad decision making. He made 51 unforced errors. How can you win, when you make yourself lose?

Answer 2

A year ago people were predicting that Federer would win as many as 20 grandslams. People always tend to overestimate these things because the prediction is always based on present form which is temporary. Even now people are talking about Nadal beating Federer's 12 grandslams, which is absurd. They assume that Nadal is going to keep up this form over the next few years - a very big assumption.

I predicted Federer would win 15 grandslams. What you're going to see from Fed now is great tennis, but he'll never dominate the way he used to. He may still win grandslams, but not 3 a year. Maybe 1 a year, perhaps 2. That's how it goes. That's how Sampras ended off. There is nothing to suggest that Roger will be different.

Idiots could thumb me down if they want, that's not going to bring the old Federer back.

Answer 3

lets wait and see.but all the players have bad time sometime.

Answer 4

He has had a hard year and it doesn't help that the media has been so quick to tear him down.  I think he got panicky and nervous in that match, his armed tensed up and his FH failed him.  Credit to his opponent though, he won  Indianapolis last week and had some amazing shots down the line off his back hand in this match.

Anyways, I think Fed just needs to regroup. I'm not sure if his new coach is helping him or if he is just in the midst of changing his game. The early exit will give him time to work on the holes we saw in yesterdays match.

As for Fed coming back, I never doubt him. He has too much talent not to keep working towards the biggest titles. Remember when everyone said Pete Sampras was over and he won the U.S. Open at 31?

Answer 5

I think Federer will return to an amazing player who wins grand slams etc, I don't think he will return to the unstoppable tennis monster but thats Ok.

I think the problem at the moment is what people are saying about him. Since the Aussie Open people have been talking about his decline, the media get at him, the greats are talking about him, the pressure is huge. Nobody could go unaffected by that pressure, nobody. He starts losing he prob thinks about what they will say, he prob feels nervious like never before. What the media are doing is actually horrible, they are helping to destroy a champion. And its really sad. But it can't go on forever, I think once he loses that number 1 spot and once the US Open is over he will lose alot of that pressure. I think the media will probably stop talking a bit if he loses the US. And then maybe he will have the chance to regroup, because right now people arn't just giving him the chance. Read his interview, its obviously a man whos struggling at the moment. He snaps like never before. Federer will come back, but we need to give him the chance to instead of talking about his downfall all the time. In the meantime I think he will continue to struggle.

Answer 6

I'm as big a Federer fan as anyone but he has been disappointing this year. Something is clearly wrong. He's routinely losing to people like Fish, Stepanek, and Simon: Definitely not the Federer of old. On the plus side, he doesn't seem to be nursing any injuries and this seems to be a mental issue. The downside is that only he can change this poor run of form and it will apparently take quite some effort and maybe a regular coach.

I'm not ready to join the "Federer is dead" club but things are not looking good and he needs to right the ship soon if he is to continue winning Majors.

Answer 7

they all have slumps - thats why they call them slumps.

Answer 8

I think Federer needs to start focusing on his matches one by one as they come. He's clearly panicking in key stages of matches. We've seen it all year even looking back to that 5-1 blown lead that Nadal won 7-5 at Hamburg which was detrimental in shattering his confidence for the French Open. He had Nadal greatly outplayed and on the brink of defeat and he still found a way to lose the match. Same in the Wimbledon final second set. Up 4-1, and suddenly Federer's serve collapses and Nadal wins 5 games in a row to take it 6-4 and takes a 2-0 set lead. Roger plays outstanding, gets leads in sets, plays great, then just seems to collapse at random parts during matches. His forehand hasn't really been as bad as people are saying it is. Everyone is just looking for some way to explain why Roger is losing but from my perspective his serving is the main portion of his game that has slipped. He's almost like jekyll and hyde out on the court this year when he's serving.

And as a result he's having a terrible year, and to add to it the olympics are coming soon. He seems to be afraid of losing the olympics and his confidence is definitely wavering. Too bad the olympics weren't in 05, 06, or even 07 when Federer was dominant. This is probably Federer's last chance to play the olympics, and low and behold he's having his worst year imaginable. I think his lack of success combined with looking forward to the olympics as a loser has really taken a toll on Roger. Let's hope that once the olympics are out of the way he can get back to looking at regular old ATP tennis and start fresh in 2009 looking to reclaim his lost titles.