Roger Federer, Floundering in Heat and Humidity, Shows He’s Only Human
Roger Federer has defied the years and tennis logic for so long now that it was jarring to see him looking his age for a change on Monday night.
He was late to the running forehand; shaky on his serve; brittle under pressure and quick, far too quick, to opt for the drop shot instead of the cut and thrust of an extended rally.
There was even a missed smash from close range into the net.
Federer, winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles and unquestionably the greatest men’s player of the Open era, found himself in all kinds of awkward and uncustomary positions in this fourth-round U.S. Open match.
The fans who had come en masse to watch Federer give an evening recital in Arthur Ashe Stadium against the Australian veteran John Millman, an unseeded and presumably overmatched opponent, instead found themselves gasping and groaning as the maestro kept hitting the wrong notes on a hot, brutally humid night at Flushing Meadows.
Federer, seeded No. 2 at age 37, looked disgruntled. He looked leg weary and at the very end, perhaps oddest of all, he looked resigned to a major upset as he failed to hold his early fourth-set edge and then produced a last flurry of gaffes in the final tiebreaker to lose 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3).
In Federer’s view, his performance — one of his poorest on a big stage during his remarkable career — had nothing to do with age and everything to do with the draining, still conditions inside Ashe Stadium, which remained draining and still even after midnight.
“Was just one of those nights where I guess I felt I couldn’t get air; there was no circulation at all,” Federer said when he arrived at the interview room at 1:45 a.m. with the humidity outdoors still above 80 percent. “I don’t know, for some reason, I just struggled in the conditions tonight. It’s one of the first times it’s happened to me.”
Millman, 29, and playing in his first round of 16 at a major, said he had been feeling out of sorts himself in the early phases of the match.
“A bit of a deer in the headlights to begin with, to be honest with you,” Millman said. “Feet weren’t moving. Roger had me on a string.”
But that was before Federer served for a two-set lead at 5-4 and failed to convert on two set points at 40-15 and eventually lost the game and momentum on a double fault. Millman raised his level considerably from there, chasing down shot after shot and ripping away successfully on big points, and not just with his stronger two-handed backhand.
In the end, he finished with 28 unforced errors to Federer’s eye-popping 77.
“Nice to know he’s human,” Millman said. “But it’s really important when someone does have an off day that you capitalize, and he’s probably one of the guys it’s toughest to do so against.”
Millman, ranked 55th, is the first player outside the top 50 to beat Federer at the U.S. Open.
Just two days after Federer defused the dangerous Nick Kyrgios in straight sets in the third round, Federer’s level plummeted. He also had 10 double faults and put only 49 percent of his first serves in play with the nadir coming in the pivotal second set, when he put just 17 of 55 first serves in play (31 percent).
“When you feel like that, everything is off,” he said of his serving. “But look, I’ve trained in tougher conditions. I’ve played in the daytime, you know, at 120. Some days it’s just not the day where the body can cope with it.”
“I do believe since the roof is on that there is no air circulation in the stadium,” he continued. “I think that just makes it a totally different U.S. Open. Plus conditions maybe were playing slower this year on top of it. You have soaking-wet pants, soaking-wet everything. The balls are in there, too. You try to play. Everything gets slower as you try to hit winners.”
But Federer was also complimentary of Millman, who trained with him earlier this year in Switzerland at the request of Federer’s co-coach Severin Lüthi as Federer prepared for the grass-court season.
“John, well, I love his intensity,” Federer said. “He reminds me of David Ferrer and those other guys that I admire a lot when I see them, when I see how they train, the passion they have for the game.”
Even before Millman got an extended chance to practice with Federer this year, he pushed him hard in the round of 16 in 2015 in Brisbane, Australia, before losing in three sets. Brisbane is Millman’s steamy home city.
“He maybe comes from one of the most humid places on earth,” Federer said. “I knew I was in for a tough one. Maybe when you feel like that, as well, you start missing chances, and I had those. That was disappointing. But, look, at some point also I was just happy that the match was over, I guess.”
That was quite a confession from a champion who again skipped the clay-court season this year to stay fresh and maximize his chances at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
But Federer lost in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon to Kevin Anderson after failing to convert a match point, and he lost to Millman in New York after failing to convert on two set points in the second set and another set point in the third-set tiebreaker.
He will remain No. 2 after the U.S. Open no matter what happens the rest of the way, and it is impossible to call his season a failure when he started it by winning his 20th major singles title at the Australian Open.
But that run in Melbourne was seven months ago, and in the what-have-you-won-for-me-lately world of pro tennis, it feels even more distant.
It also seems increasingly unlikely that he will triumph at another U.S. Open. It has been 10 years since he won his fifth straight in 2008.
“It’s hard to discount the guy, because he’s obviously the greatest of all time, and he’s unbelievable, but that one stands out to me,” Mark Knowles, a former No. 1 doubles player turned television analyst, said of Federer’s loss to Millman. “First of all, I’ve never seen him sweat like that. While we’re all sweating, he never sweats, but he was drenched.”
Federer even called for a portable fan to be repositioned and placed directly in front of him on changeovers as he sat in his chair. But there would be no respite, and no big-buzz rematch with Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals.
Djokovic did his part, defeating João Sousa in the heat in straight sets in their fourth-round match on Monday. He then spoke at length about how Federer’s consistent excellence had motivated him to raise his own game and standards earlier in his career.
But as it turned out, Djokovic should have spent his limited interview-room time exploring his much shorter history with Millman.
They have played just once, with Djokovic winning 6-2, 6-1 in the round of 32 at Queen’s Club in June. Djokovic has rumbled on from there, winning the titles at Wimbledon and in Cincinnati.
Millman has yet to win any ATP event but has proved his grit by overcoming reconstructive shoulder surgery in 2013 and more recently groin surgery.
“I’ll have to improve a lot on the last time I played him,” Millman said of Djokovic. “He’s an incredible player. I think he’s in some really good form right now, too. Yeah, but why not? I think it’s a disservice to who I am if I go out there and don’t have that belief.”
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