Are We Seeing The End Of Roger Federer?

16-time Grand Slam Champion Roger Federer was ousted by underdog Thomas Berdych in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon (an event he was won 6 of the last 7 years) in an unceremonious 4 sets. For the better part of the last decade Federer has been easily the most dominant player in tennis and on the grass courts of the All-England in particular (only Pete Sampras could rival such a dominating run). We are used to seeing Fed make it all the way to the finals without dropping a single set in the past but the tide may finally be changing. Federer dropped the first two sets he played in this year’s tournament to an unranked qualifier, a previously unthinkable event. He has played a shaky tournament throughout and an early exit seemed in the cards. The question must now be asked: Are we seeing the end of Roger Federer’s run of dominance?

It’s certainly too early to give up on Fed completely but a quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon to anyone other than Rafael Nadal shows that his skills have to be diminishing. Federer is now 28 which is old for a tennis player (like a 30-year old NFL running back or 35-year old MLB slugger) and certainly one cannot expect his game to get any better as he gets older. On the flip-side Federer won the Australian earlier this year and nobody saw any flaws in his game just a few months ago. I think Fed will gradually fall back to the pack and that the days of almost every Grand Slam final matching up Federer and Nadal are likely over. Fed is too good not to remain a force in tennis for a least a year or two more but it may finally be time for Rafael Nadal to take his rightful place as the undisputed World’s number 1 (he is the ATP’s #1 ranked player already).

Having said all that I believe that Roger Federer is the kind of special athlete who will rise above all the speculation is going to receive over the next few weeks. He could have just had a bad tournament and been nagged by some previously unknown injury but it is too early to tell at this point. Federer still has the US Open later this summer to prove his doubters wrong and I would be more than happy to see that from such a class act. For now though we can only wonder.

As a side note this may finally be the there when Wimbledon sees its first English Champion since 1936 in 4th seeded Andy Murray. He still has powerhouses Novak Djokovich and Nadal to go through but he’ll have every single person in the stands pulling for him as well as many around the world, myself included.