Old Man Federer Out Again

That’s a second year in a row where Roger Federer has been dismissed from Wimbledon in the quarterfinals. Up two sets to love, Federer must have had a major brain fart or something, because he blew that lead and lost the quarterfinal match against an inspired Frenchman, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in 5 sets.

I really have to hand it to Tsonga for his performance today, he literally was blasting winners from every spot on the court, forehands, backhands, and beautifully executed volleys. Not sure if you guys picked up on something different about Tsonga’s game; from time to time he was hitting a full one-handed backhand – even those were winners. He just hitting a really clean tennis ball which clearly gave the Swiss Legend some big problems.

Watching the match, it was clear that Federer had already mentally left for the locker room after he lost the third set. In the 4th and 5th, Roger started playing way too passively, slicing returns, hanging out on the baseline, not coming to net, and really looked deflated. Before he realized out what was going on, the match was over. This was the first time Roger Federer lost a tennis match when leading the match by two sets.

Tsonga will now face Novak Djokovic, no easy task considering Djokovic’s 2011 record, which should be a “slug-fest”. The two have some history together, they’ve met in the Australian Open Finals way back in 2008. Since then, however; Tsonga has been a struggle for the top Serb, winning 5 of the last 6 meetings. Novak has improved his serve ten fold since their last meeting so it should be quite a semifinal.

Today’s loss should give Federer something to really think about. He played way too passively to be competitive and really just had some bad shot making. He started off strong but wilted away after the first two. If Federer plans on competing to win an Olympic Gold Medal in 2012, he’s going to have to head back to the drawing board and reconfigure his tennis game.