Here is the One Reason Roger Federer Lost at Wimbledon

For the most part yesterday, Roger Federer played the perfect grass court match. So much so he was the only one of the two to who actually win all his sets by clear breaks of serve. Especially his second set demolition of Novak Djokovic 6-1. He played an outstanding game on grass which pushed Djokovic to his limits, something no one has been able to do in a Grand Slam since the Serbian won Wimbledon last year.

Source - Getty Images - Roger Federer

But there was one thing wrong with his game last night that cost him the title early on (disregarding Federer’s failed match point conversions). His overuse of the backhand slice against an opponent who rarely missed the short balls was his major flaw.

On too many occasions where Federer should have pressed home his advantage on Djokovic’s own short ball on the back wing, he opted to slice, again and again…and again. Instead of turning up the heat with his own backhand he retreated into his safe slice zone and was found wanting because of this.

There were some crucial points throughout the match where his slice allowed Djokovic to press home the advantage and kill the point. These were times where Federer against Nadal stepped into the ball with unflinching confidence and spanked it past him. Against Djokovic he was in two minds what to do at times where he needed to maintain his belief in his real weapon and instead he crawled into his shell.

This negative choice then fed into his game where at times he hesitated to come to the net, times where easy volleys (by his standard) were ready to be taken. Instead bizarrely retreating back to the baseline and then needing to produce an insane drop shot or put up a stern defense to win the point somehow.

There is no doubt this was the sort of final everyone on centre court was hoping, one where the momentum swung back and forth in classic pendulum style. For Federer fans what was probably the most frustrating is that Djokovic did not even manage to break Federer until the fifth set, yet somehow he still managed to win! Federer couldn’t get over the line of any of the three tie breaks including the final one in the fifth.

This was on top of Federer having two match points on serve. Those two points came when he was 8-7 up in games and they were crucial, literally the whole centre court erupted, you could tell which side the fans were on. The second of the two match points was probably the worst. Djokovic gave him a short ball on his forehand – the perfect opportunity to finish the match, but instead Federer drove a rather tame forehand cross court which Djokovic ate up with glee to bring the score to deuce. That was the golden point where Federer choked failing to take the chance with real conviction. It was an unbelievably out of character moment to watch.

I think many of Federer’s biggest fans may have coped better had Federer lost more comprehensively. Instead this will remain a very bitter sweet pill for them to swallow. Sweet because Federer played some fantastic tennis at times rolling back the years, bitter because he ended up with nothing having won the most amount of games in the match!