What to make of Roger Federer’s 5-set loss to Juan Martin del Potro? First, I don’t know about The Man, but I’ve already gotten over it. As most of his fans. I think. Like the others have said, I’ll take the first French Open title any time over a 6th U.S. Open, if he couldn’t have one with the other.
The thing is, he could have gotten both. Even the Australian earlier in the year. It maybe is a stretch, but both were five setters where he was not playing his absolute best! Well, that’s just from what I read about the Australian Open. I still haven’t got the heart to look for a video of that match. But this year’s U.S. Open? I woke up at 5 a.m., barely 4 hours since I decided to call it a night, just to watch Federer play a bad game (by the Federer standard) from start to finish. He can’t get his first serves in, the one component of his game that allowed him to win titles despite his opponents’ best effort. He didn’t move quite as well as he had been doing lately. His forehand produced wide shots and he spewed a total of 11 double faults and produced less than 15 aces (he had 50 in his 5 set Wimbledon victory against Andy Roddick). By the time the fifth set rolled in, it was like I was seeing projector headlights going on and off, announcing insurmountable danger. As I feared, he didn’t recover. I was hugely disappointed, although not to take anything away from del Potro, he did what Andy Murray couldn’t do last year. To hang in there with the best of all time and not let the occasion and his nerves get the better of him. Didn’t make me happy, though. On to next year, then. There’s always the Australian Open.
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