What’s Wrong With Roger?!?

So Federer lost to Thomas Berdych 4:6, 7:6, 6:7 in the round of 16 in Miami last night. A shock for most of his fans and the tennis fans in Miami, who were looking forward to a possible final Federer – Nadal. And ‘Fed’ lost to Marcos Baghdatis in the third round of  last weeks Indian Wells tournament already (in straight sets). How can that happen?!?

Is Federer struggling again with his form … and his forehand … and his overhead … and his backhand?

No, He isn’t!

He lost 6:8 in the third set of the tiebreak, had one matchpoint and had 10 break chances during the whole match, compared to only 4 for Berdych and he won as many points in total as the Zcech No. 1, as well. So, it was a really close match that he lost. Unlike the early exits of Djokovic and Murray, Federer was very close to winning, but just came up short a tiny little bit in the end.

On top of that Djokovic and Murray have been the two finalists of last years event, and they will lose a lot of points due to their early departures. Federer reached only the semi-final last year and has only 360 points to defend. The only player left in the draw, who can be dangerous for his No. 1 ranking spot, is Nadal and he is more than 4000 points behind Federer. So, no worries for ‘Fed’ in that department.

And this is one of the two things Roger is really concerned about. He wants to break Pete Sampras’ record of total weeks at No. 1 and total year-end finishes as No. 1.

If you have some money to spend, go ahead and place a bet on him reaching these goals this year. The only problem is that you won’t get much money back, if you are right…

His other big goal for this year and main focus is winning a Grand Slam. And in order to do that he needs to have enough energy a, motivation and focus during the last 3 Grand Slam events of this year. So, he cannot go 100% all year long. A big mistake Nadal has made over the past years. Of course both players have very different attitudes and work ethics. And they have to have (at least Nadal), because god did not give both the same amount of talent. Nadal always has to work hard to win his matches. But Federer can win with less effort most of the times, and that is the reason why he is not injured so often. And it is also the reason why he suffers some surprise early exits in some tournaments that are not so important for him. But it does not happen when he really care, as his Grand Slam record clearly show. Federer always tries to save as much energy as possible and win his matches with ease, because he is always aiming for the title. And that means a lot of matches in a row. And if he is not aiming for the title, but for the big titles (grand Slams) he is trying to save even more energy.

So, there is nothing to worry about for the Federer fans. He thinks French Open already and I think he will have a great chance this year to get the Grand Slam.

And then the Federer fans have reason to worry, because if he can accomplish that, he will also break the other records for the No. 1 ranking, and then he has nothing to play for anymore besides exercise and fun. And I don’t know if he will have enough motivation to travel around the globe to exercise… His wife might ask him to play with his daughters on the court next to the house instead…

H F Hesse

Hesse Tennis Training

Professional Training and Coaching for Top Juniors and Professionals