Is it Really the Return of the King?

We humans are always in favor of exaggerating the truth and sometimes of seeing the past as we want to so as to support our conclusions about today. This method generally results in wrong interpretations of the past events. This type of behavior is more visible in mass media.


There were people claiming that the reign Federer was almost finished or had already been finished after his defeat to Djokovic in French Open 2012. But after his wins over Djokovic and Murray in Wimbledon, he has started to be praised again and is expected to win a couple more Grand Slams despite his old age and harsh competition on the top. His number one spot also rendered these comments plausible.


I'm not against Federer or do not underrate his facts and trophies, but try to see the reality as it is, not under the effect of the last tournament he played. Let's remember year 2011. He just won the first tournament of the year in Doha in January, then won a couple in the very late season some indoor tournaments including the ATP Masters Final in London. In between, he barely made finals.He was again the underdog in RG because of his lack of form. His sole sensational success was against Djokovic, when he stopped his exceptional unbeaten run in French Open 2011 semi finals in 5-sets.  But then, he lost to Tsonga in Wimbledon QF and to Djokovic in US open SF both in 5 sets and didn't won anything in the meantime. He seemed to be so down that people played down his chances of being number 1 again, as do I. Then he finished 2011 with successive trophies in indoor tournaments and ATP Masters Final.


Different from 2011, he continued winning tournaments in spring of 2012 in Rotterdam (hard court) Indian Wells (hard court), Madrid (blue clay) despite a loss in Australian Open SF to Nadal, in which he again seemed to be desperate to win. He captured the number 2 spot from Nadal for a week, for the first time 1.5 years before RG. Now he came to RG as one of the favorites as did Nadal and Djokovic. We had the same clash between Djokovic and Federer in the semis. This time however, Djokovic thrashed Federer in 3 sets and looked really really solid, not affected or intimidated by Federer at all. Then, people started commenting as if Federer is a lost case and he would retire soon maybe not this year but next year.


And then, what an upswing from him! He crushed everyone on the road to the trophy including beating Bennateu with a two sets deficit. A reasonable man must contemplate on the causes of his ups and downs. Federer never retired in a match or missed a Grand Slam due to injury. He works with his coach Paul Annacone for a pretty long time and has a stable family life with his twin daughters. So, everything seems to be stable in his tennis and family life. So some psychological factors or some court conditions might explain his ups and downs.

Federer's win/loss streak in years 2010, 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Here is a wrap up of his form. As of 2010, he started to lose his dominance as well as his World no.1 ranking to Nadal and then to Djokovic.


The grass court performance is limited to Wimbledon and maybe a warm-up tournament for Wimbledon. Although he was very dominant on grass in his early and mid-career, in 2010 and 2011 he lost in QF of Wimbledon but won it this year, which is not reflected on the figure. So this year's grass part will be 7-0.


He is generally very good on hard courts, which are quick and is not as good on clay. He is still very good on clay and made to the RG finals a few times but Nadal is one of the best and better than Federer on clay, that is obvious.


The most apparent statistic is his indoor performance. He just lost one match in all three years! 37-1! Can you believe it? So, if he is not disturbed with the wind or the sunshine or whatever comes from open air, he is basically invulnerable. This 37-1 streak encompasses 10 wins over top-8 players of the world in London ATP Finals tournament. So, playing the semis and the second half of the final indoors in Wimbledon boosted his performance no matter what.


I will elaborate on the performance of Federer as well as on the one of Nadal and Djokovic to draw better comparisons.