Adler's Insights: Signs of a Federer decline

by DOUG ADLER, FOXSports.com

Updated: March 10, 2008, 12:29 PM EST 52 comments

Roger Federer's run of dominance seems to be at an end. (Kamran Jebreili / Associated Press)

He is Roger Federer. Remarkable ... amazing ... Tigeresque.

Enough. I'm sure you get the point. Best ever, no?

Well, here's my concern. Even though Fed was brilliant in winning three more majors last year, I didn't see some of those victories quite the same way. In the Wimbledon final, Rafael Nadal was in his head big-time. Federer was visibly frustrated throughout the encounter. With Nadal leading 4-0 in the fourth set and gaining back momentum, the lefty pulled up lame with what has become a chronic knee problem.

Although Rafa did win the set, he never recovered to find his form. He had break-point opportunities to pounce on Federer early in the fifth, but instead got caught in the trap of remembering whom he was playing. Nadal was no longer able to execute his shots under the extreme pressure of playing in a Wimbledon final against "The King." We saw Nadal become despondent in a losing effort. After the trophy presentation, when most of the crowd had left, he sat on the court and cried for what must have seemed like hours to him. Rafa realized he probably should have won and couldn't believe he'd let his big chance slip away.

Federer not only won a fifth straight time at the All England Club, but also showed amazing grace and calm under pressure. He fought off rough patches of inconsistent play, primarily from the forehand wing. His serve, as well as his self-belief, ended up being the difference maker. No question, that's why he won on that day. Fed was still The King, but he was very fortunate to get out of there with the "W." That was the match that put Federer's aura of invincibility in question for me ... struggling on his favorite surface against The King of Clay.

Leading up to The Championships, Roger was not as successful as in previous years. He lost twice to Willy Canas on North American hard courts. Canas, a brutally tenacious baseliner, had just returned to the tour following a 15-month suspension due to testing positive for steroids. Those Federer losses came back-to-back at Indian Wells and Miami. Indian Wells could be rationalized. Roger won the event in Dubai just the week before, making some very serious coin in the UAE. He struggled to find his legs, timing and forehand against the "Lucky Loser," losing 7-5, 6-2 in his opening match to the more eager Argentine. In 2005, Fed had beaten Canas at the same venue, 6-3, 6-1, in the semis.

Nadal continued to dominate the world No. 1 on European red clay, defeating Federer convincingly in the finals for a second straight year at both Monte Carlo and Roland Garros. Federer put up little resistance throughout those encounters and didn't try employing any new strategies while playing the best player in the world on clay — which surprised me. The one bright spot came in Hamburg, where Federer earned his first win ever against Nadal on clay, 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, ending Nadal's consecutive 81-match winning streak on that surface.

During that same stretch, Italy's Filippo Volandri beat Federer in Rome, 6-2, 6-4. Fed had been so close to winning the title there the previous year when he held two match points in the final set against Nadal. Even though Roger lost that grueling match to Rafa 7-6 in the fifth, it looked like he'd discovered something. He'd come into the net over 80 times during their five-hour marathon, succeeding in winning over 60 of those net point approaches. That type of net prowess rarely occurred in his brutal loss to Volandri. He was flat and the once fatal forehand was extremely erratic. The negative body language was also very telling — that was the end of the coaching relationship between Tony Roche and Federer.

The greatest athletes from all sports possess a similar quality — they have something called "selective memory, or the ability to remember the good and forget the bad rather quickly — even if they get there in an unrealistic way. Federer is a true champion and definitely looked out of sorts and struggled at times during several matches in 2007, but he was able to put it together when it counted most at the major championships. He could have also lost in the U.S. Open final to Novak Djokovic last year. He was down five set points in the first set, two more in the second, and trailed by a break and 4-1 in the third. Again, the Federer aura prevailed under pressure against a younger opponent in his first Grand Slam final.

But despite the successs, there was a definite pattern being established by Federer in 2007. His famous forehand, viewed by many as perhaps the best and most lethal weapon in the game over the past four years, was no longer his most effective — or even reliable — shot. Under duress, it was now the quality of his serve, without a doubt, making the difference in winning or losing. Not just his first serve, but the second serve.

Said Pancho Gonzalez: "You're only as good as your second serve."

Sampras "got it" and clearly understood the motto as he neutralized Agassi's return in most of their major showdowns.

Along with this subtle change to Fed's arsenal, his backhand has become a consistent weapon. Rarely can it be broken down these days because of the variation he creates with slice and spin, and the ability he possesses to flatten out the shot. Other than that, his movement is still flawless to that side. Reminiscent of Muhammad Ali, Fed "floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee" while hitting crucial backhands for winners now. Opponents have saturated the Federer backhand for so long that it's now become his strength.

So what happened in January at the Australian Open? Federer certainly had his chances early, leading Djokovic 3-5 on the Serb's serve in the first set of their semifinal encounter. We've come to take Federer for granted because he makes everything look so easy. And even though he's only 26, he's done it for such a long time at a superior level. Anyone playing our sport knows the difficulty of his task day-in and day-out.

That's his true genius. Forget about forehands, serves and backhands for a second. Federer visibly struggled throughout the tourney. He even commented he didn't feel he was moving that great. Then all his confidence went out the window. Djokovic controlled the match from that point, putting another small dent into Federer's aura of invincibility. And with that, 10 consecutive Slam finals came to a screeching halt.

Even at 26, Fed's career is starting to look more and more like what we saw later from Sampras, being consumed by only the Slams. It's become harder for him to stay motivated and win consistently outside of those events. Certain players usually hold their own against Federer and never seem to be psyched out, regardless of where they play. Nalbandian is one of those guys. Toward the end of '07, the Argentine topped Fed in Madrid and Paris, making Roger look very average and even sloppy at times. Fed's forehand let him down badly in both losses.

Andy Murray is another extremely talented kid not in awe of Federer. Murray believes he can beat anyone, anytime. He's already starting to rattle Fed, beating him in Cincy in '06, and now at Dubai, where Federer was defending champion (Federer had zero break point chances). Only time will tell how selective Federer's memory really is if he's going to recover from these types of defeats.

Still, Federer is the greatest tennis player I've ever seen, bar none. With all due respect to the many champions before him, he's more complete than Rod Laver, Roy Emerson, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Agassi and, yes, even Sampras. Even though his streak of consecutive Grand Slam finals is over, he's not done by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think he'll run off a streak like that again, but with only three Slam wins to go to break Sampras' record, Federer should be the undisputed king before his career is over.