Federer lost Toronto final but made Edberg proud

[stefanstennis]

Roger Federer lost the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in two sets 7-5, 7-6. Nevertheless, in a very bad day with his groundstrokes, he managed to hang on until the second set tie-break especially thanks to a wonderful serve & volley display that reminded of his coach Stefan Edberg at his best.

In this HD video, we collected 12 of his 27 points won at the net (out of 33 played in the entire match). The ESPN commentator said that Federer had never been so confident at the net in his career. Do you agree?

Watch the video»

 

[Kieran]

Great video, Stefanstennis, I really enjoyed that. Could have been watching tennis from the 90's. And I must say, this style suits Roger, he's probably enjoying the way he's releasing himself from worrisome baseline brawls by chipping and charging, serve-volleying, etc. I wonder why he didn't do this long ago, to be honest...

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

^^federers ego wouldn't let him give up on baseline duels..but now at his age he has no choice.

 

[Front242]

Great video, stefanstennis. Pity he threw in so much slop with the good net play but he definitely hit some nice volleys that match alright.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

There is no question that Rogers netplay was great in the finals. Basically, he was passed
very few times (may be just twice or thrice). It worked against Tsonga. However, I am not
so sure that it will work so well against any of the other members of big four. He surely,
will get passed more often than in Toronto Finals.

The worst part is that once he gets passed few times, he will have more fear coming
in and then it will become baseline rally and then ..............

 

[El Dude]

It worked against Tsonga.

Evidently not quite well enough. I get what you're saying, that in terms of net play it worked well, but the rest of his game wasn't up to the task.

I agree with Kieran that it brings back fond memories of the samurai-like 90s. I'd like to see more of this sort of play.

It makes me wonder, though. Is Roger Federer remaking himself at 32-33? It seems so. And if so, if he is still in the process of re-making his game, can we expect better results in the future on account of him gaining more experience and confidence with this new style of play? In other words, if he improves his net game even more, and is able to beat back Father Time a bit longer on the rest of his game, could he be more effective than he is now?

If so, it would have to be 2015, maybe 2016. I mean, he is 33. Now perhaps given his fitness level and the more mature nature of the game today, maybe "35 is the new 30" and Roger can hold off serious decline for another couple years yet. Man, I hope so.

 

[Haelfix]

If so, it would have to be 2015, maybe 2016. I mean, he is 33. Now perhaps given his fitness level and the more mature nature of the game today, maybe "35 is the new 30" and Roger can hold off serious decline for another couple years yet. Man, I hope so.

During a large portion of his prime years, particularly early on (03-05), he would come in a lot, even occasionally on 2nd serves. It was starting in 2006 and later where he basically removed that part from his game in favor of a more gradual point construction approach. I think that his net game was pretty outrageously good in 02-03 etc

I always felt that it was what made Federer, quasi impossible to beat for almost the entire tour. With normal baseliners, you can hit squash shots when you are in trouble, you can slice a bit and you can throw in some junk. You can also get away with hitting some weak floaters on a return. When you are playing someone who is a threat at netrushing, it radically shrinks your options. Of course the only option you have left is to hit perfect deep shots to a very small window, and the problem with Roger is that he had an inside out forehand that was capable of ending points outright. Which basically left no part of the court safe.

Nowdays his baseline is less of a threat, so there are more options for keeping Roger from netrushing (See the wimbledon final where Djokovic successfully pinned Roger, and forced him to hit approach shots that he didn't want)

But yea, he is volleying well this year (actually his volleys were always good, its more about his net coverage.. the movement and anticipation that has improved back to his early days)

 

[Federberg]

Great video, stefanstennis. Pity he threw in so much slop with the good net play but he definitely hit some nice volleys that match alright.

I wouldn't be so hard on him. He was effectively playing in completely different conditions to every other match in Toronto. It wasn't a shocking result to me, particularly given the match up with JWT. We just have to accept these days that he'll need certain things to go his way to get the big W's, but I'm not at the stage yet, where I'll give up on him. I must admit though... I don't have the same level of enjoyment watching now... I get too stressed!

 

[Front242]

^ Likewise about level of enjoyment. You can sense when the errors are coming, you know he's gonna throw sets away, I knew a mile off he wasn't holding serve at 4-5 against Novak at Wimbledon but the way he lost it is the worst part. At least make the opponent earn it instead of misfiring a whole game away. Likewise that Indian Wells 3rd set TB. He hit 6 (!) straight ufes after playing well to get it to a TB. It's sad to behold. Not winning any of the masters finals so far this year has been a real kick in the nuts to him and fans.