Walking towards a dimming twilight, Roger Federer’s slam winning days might just be turning dark
It’s a sultry day in Melbourne and Roger Federer is down a break in the third set against Tennys Sandgren in the Australian Open Quarterfinals. Sandgren, a burly six-foot-two American with a huge serve and forehand was looking increasingly dangerous. Sandgren might be the lowest-ranked opponent in Federer’s draw, but he’s certainly no slouch. A journeyman, he’s prone to streaks of fiery performances; Sandgren had battled Fabio Fognini in a bizarre and grueling four-setter to clinch his spot in the quarterfinals for the second time in his career, playing a titan of the sport in one of the biggest stages in sport, and he was making the most of it.
Going toe-to-toe against Federer is not an easy task, yet it seemed like Federer was hanging on to dear life against an opponent most had contended to be a walk in the park. After a few curses (in Swiss-German) that were picked up by a lineswoman leading to a code violation, Federer approached the chair, argued for a while, and shortly after called for the physio and took a medical timeout. He had (most likely) injured his knee and groin (something I suspected all the way back in his third round encounter against John Millman as I’ve played with groin issues and his movement looked painfully similar to how I hobbled) and came back noticeably slower and unable to serve or hit his backhand effectively. While what followed was possibly one of Federer’s greatest comebacks, those seven match points saved left a sour taste in the mouth, a reminder of the inordinate number of times Federer had been hampered by injury in recent times.
His 2016 campaign was marred by injuries and was the first time he had to undergo surgery, an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee. While his comeback in the grass season seemed to be reaching its crescendo in Wimbledon, Federer lost a close semifinal to Raonic and re-injured his knee in the process, skipping 6 months of the tour to rehab his knee, missing the Olympics as a result. His injury concerns lingered even in his winning run in the Australian Open in 2017. Federer had groin issues in his semi and final matches, followed by a back injury later on in the year that rendered his pursuit for the number one ranking moot and something that hampered his run in the US Open. A wrist issue followed for most of the grass and early hard court season in 2018, heat and sickness led to an early loss during his 2018 US Open campaign, more back issues in last year’s US Open and now this.
His Wimbledon campaign, while memorable to most tennis fans for how close a match the final was, is perhaps one of the most heartbreaking moments in tennis history. A nearly 38-year-old veteran of the tour almost won an epic battle against the best player in the world by rallying back from a break down in the decider, only to literally lose by inches off the net cord and a failed second serve net approach. His wonderful performance against Novak a few months later did little to dampen the horrors of the two missed match points, despite Federer’s nonchalance in admitting “I won the match point, I guess” when asked what he did differently this time around.
I digress.
Shortly after his semifinal loss to Novak this year where he played on one knee, Federer made an announcement: he had an arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and was aiming to come back for the grass season. His top 5 ranking would be in jeopardy, and while he did the exact same thing after a nightmare 2016 season, he isn’t getting any younger. Luckily, COVID-19 mitigated a large chunk of his inaction with Dubai being the only tournament he missed, after which the tennis season was suspended and is yet to be back up.
He’s not going to be losing any of his points from Indian Wells onwards until his ATP Finals Semifinal run because of an amendment in how ranking points are being distributed due to COVID-19, which is helpful because Federer underwent another arthroscopic knee surgery since his rehab wasn’t going as well as he and his team had hoped. He has ruled himself out for the rest of the season, which means when he’s back, he’ll be playing after an entire year. I can’t recall a time when any player has come back after so long to come back and win a slam, not to mention that Federer will be turning 40 (!!!) next year.
It really begs the question: should Federer hang up his boots? This is a particularly tired question he’s been asked ever since his loss in the 2008 Wimbledon Final but hang on a minute: His body seems to be failing him steadily and consistently, he’s not getting any younger and while he might be content in declaring that he feels he has it in him to win slams, it seems too unlikely. Yes, discounting Roger Federer is something countless pundits have done and he’s proved them wrong time and time again but his injury woes truly seem to be getting the better of him.
This, unfortunately, seems like an aging champion in his twilight slowly walking toward darkness.
I would love to be wrong. By all means, I’d love to be wrong. There’s a lot that could go right and if his last year or so is anything to go by, he has it in him to stay competitive, no doubt. Aside from being a lick away from the golden pineapple trophy, he lost an inordinate number of close matches to top players, the very first being his fourth-round loss to Tsitsipas in Australia, followed by two close losses to Thiem, one on clay where he had match points (this is a trend). His last three ATP finals campaigns have been extremely frustrating and close semi-final losses and while his hunger to win is very much alive, his body doesn’t really seem to be able to keep up.
To make sure he’s still competitive for the big titles, Federer should take a cue from Serena Williams and cut down on the number of tournaments he plays. Serena played only 8 tournaments in 2019. In contrast, Federer played 14 tournaments, 15 if you include Hopman Cup. That number ought to be closer to 10 or even lower. However, unlike Serena, Roger has several consistent and dangerous contemporaries who are young and hungry, because of which he needs a higher ranking to get a favourable draw. Federer seems to have realised that he needs to slow his schedule down a bit: he didn’t play a warm-up tournament before playing down under, something he last did only in 2013, which was similarly injury-plagued. And before his injury break, Federer seemed to have ruled out an extensive clay season like last year, focusing instead only on the French Open.
Going forward, it won’t be surprising to see the entire clay season go much like 2017 and 2018, despite how wonderful his 2019 campaign was. Further reductions won’t be surprising either. Shanghai, for example, would be a tournament he might consider skipping along with one of the sunshine double masters, though that’ll be unlikely.
Federer will go into the 2021 season defending over 6600 points, almost half of which are from slams. It’ll be interesting to see how he performs after a year of inaction and two knee surgeries. A big motivation will be the Olympics, which is scheduled for the summer. He’ll be aiming for the elusive Gold medal and it’ll be his last shot at it. Now whether a graying grandpa like Roger will clinch Gold remains unknown, but as a tennis fan who got into the sport because of him and Agassi, I must say it’ll be a beautiful gift if he does make the most of his comeback, which will be a fitting tribute and throwback to his 2017 season.
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