By Ricky Dimon
Roger Federer hopes–and also also thinks–that his semifinal loss to Novak Djokovic won’t be the last we see of him at the Australian Open.
A heavy underdog due mostly to being less than 100 percent physically on the heels of two five-set thrillers earlier in the tournament, Federer fell to Novak Djokovic 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday night.
The world No. 3, who dealt with a groin problem during a quarterfinal against Tennys Sandgren in which he saved an incredible seven match points, got off to a surprisingly strong start in the semis. He raced to a 4-1 advantage in the opening set and seized a 0-40 lead to go up 5-1 only to see Djokovic come back and hold. The second-ranked Serb eventually broke to stay in the set and went on to dominate a tiebreaker.
From there it was just about all over for Federer, even though each of the next two sets was decided by only a single service break.
“Huge respect to Federer for coming out tonight,” Djokovic praised. “Clearly he was hurt and in no way near to the movement he is doing regularly. He was not close to his best but huge credit to him for coming and playing in the match.”
Federer hopes to play plenty more matches in Melbourne.
“You never know what the future holds,” the 38-year-old Swiss said when asked about his chances of being back in Melbourne Park next season. “Especially (at) my age, you don’t know. I’m confident; I’m happy how I’m feeling, to be honest. I got through a good, nice training block. (I have) no plans to retire. From that standpoint, we’ll see how the year goes, how everything is with the family. We’ll go from there. Of course, I hope to be back.”
And does the 20-time Grand Slam champion think he can still win major titles?
“Yes. Yes, I do believe that. I think by having the year that I had last year, also with what I have in my game, how I’m playing, I do feel that. Yeah.”
Based on his heroics in simply making it to the semis this year, there is no reason to count him out.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.
Editors Note: many of us felt that Roger had something going on with his back the whole tourney. His coach Severin was carrying his red Wilson racket bag for weeks. The only time RF carried it was to walk on court. We saw RF twice lifting bags he really shouldn’t have over the past 5 weeks. First it was getting off a jet carrying a Rimowa bag and the second time reaching to get a larger Rimowa bag out of a cars ”trunk” or “boot”… (LJ)
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