Tennis is weird.
Before playing the Indian Wells final, Roger Federer was flying on a 17-0 win-loss record, and it seemed like he was ready for a clean sweep in 2018. The Swiss legend was so self-confident also to state that he was open to competing during the clay court season. Fast forward, and after a couple of matches, Roger looks “broken” following his defeat in the Indian Wells final where he was unable to convert 3 championship points on his serve against Del Potro and an incredible loss in the Miami Open first match.
What happened in Miami
In Florida, Roger was opposed to the world no.175 Thanasi Kokkinakis that has been struggling for long with injuries. The Australian was coming straight from the qualifications, and he didn’t seem to be a serious threat for the world no.1.
In fact, Roger had no problems in winning the first set after breaking Kokkinakis in the 4th game (3-1), but things got complicated after Federer was broken out of the blue at love in the 4th game (3-1) of the second set after being rock solid on his serve in the previous games. That break was enough to bring the affair to the decider.
Until the contest went to the breaker, Federer was much better than Thanasi in the 3rd set as he conceded just 5 points on his serve while Kokkinakis was often struggling to also save a couple of break points.
Eventually, everything got to the decisive tiebreak, before Federer lost that at 4. The final score was 3-6 6-3 7-6(4) in 2 hours and 21 minutes.
Federer scored 2 points than Kokkinakis (98-96), but that was obviously not enough.
I couldn’t get it done. FEDERER
Soon after the match, Roger commented
“It’s disappointing. Don’t know why I could never get to any level that I was happy with today. Sometimes you have these matches. Sometimes you find a way through. I just couldn’t get it done today.
Honestly, in the third set, anything could have happened. I feel like I wasn’t feeling good. The ball, I wasn’t feeling. With my movement, things weren’t absolutely working.
I felt like the third could be a tricky one, of course. I feel like every time I had chances, something bad happened for me, wrong decision making by me, good decision making by him. Who knows what happened. It just felt like I could be paying the price for opportunities missed.”
After this defeat, Roger also announced he will not play during the clay court season including the Roland Garros.
| NOT A GREAT ONE FOR ROGER |
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