Frustration.
That is the word you use right now if you are a fan of Roger Federer. Last Saturday, the great Swiss lost a double tiebreaker to Argentine Frederico Delbonis, and now, in his home country of Switzerland, in the city of Gstaad, Federer suffered another surprising defeat to Daniel Brands of Germany.
Things started off decently enough with Federer holding cleanly but he gave up the break in the 5th game. Brands took care of his service games and saved a few break points along the way (one of which he dumped a second serve return into the net), but he won the first set just as he did in Hamburg last week. As if losing the first set was bad enough, the Fed got broken in the first game of the second and faced an ever-growing mountain. He had his chances to break back at various times in the set but every time he did Brands had the answer, either with a big serve or a big forehand winner. End result, a 6-3, 6-4 defeat, and he has lost 3 of his last 7 matches.
It is a hard time right now if you are a fan of Roger, as of course I am. Trying to find answers to these losses and this general poor play is difficult, as it must be for Fed himself. What is happening that he has such little confidence? The recent racquet change has little to do with it, because he has no self-belief that he can beat the guy on the other side of the net right now - and it doesn't matter whether he's playing with a 90, 98, or 120, he will still not play well if he doesn't have a healthy, energized mind.
Perhaps the loss to Murray way back at the Australian Open hurt him more than I anticipated. Couple that with losses to Benneteau, Berdych, Nishikori, Tsonga, Stakhovsky, Delbonis, and now Brands, it is easy to see why someone like Roger would be struggling going through such a rough year so far. He is slower, has less power, and is less capable of stringing together great matches like he once was at the height of his powers (or even last year when his confidence was sky-high). All I know is that he must right this ship in Montreal and Cincinnati or else he won't even make the quarterfinals at the US Open, no matter what the draw looks like.
I know decline happens, but it is difficult to go through this last month as a fan of his. He is trying his hardest to fight it off but sometimes you just cannot delay the inevitable. However, I have no doubt that he can still play good tennis, but he needs to build it by winning some matches and that starts in Montreal, which I will be attending for a day (hopefully Fed is still in it when I go around 3rd round/quarterfinal day).
Ugh.
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