Hiring Annacone: the worst decision of Federer's career?

[brokenshoelace]

That’s not the way my sources tell me. PA tried to get Roger to commit to a larger frame racket but Roger wouldn’t was reluctant to change. Lubic got Roger to change to the larger frame and to drive his bh dtl and flatter.. El dude or GSM..keep me honest here if I don’t have it correct!

"My sources" LMAO

 

[Moxie]

"My sources" LMAO

As if you know.

 

[Jelenafan]

That crazy Annacone.

Under his guise Methuselah won a Wimbledon title and had 2 ATP YE champs (the second beating in successive matches Murray, Soderling, Djokovic and Nadal). In fact that was Federer's only Wimbledon victory in 7 year span , the 2 ATP YE champs were the last ones so far in Federer's career, and the 2011 FO final was the last FO final Federer has made since, giving Djokovic his only loss at a Major in 2011.

Federer also won 5 Masters titles under the shameful Annacone. Indeed, under the terrible Annacone, Federer won his last Masters on clay, indeed his only Clay Masters in the last 10 years. BTW those 5 Master titles are the best cumulative 3 year Masters wins since Federer's salad years of 2005-07.
.
As to the infamous inexplicable HC loss to Nadal at the 2011 Cincinnati Masters, the horrific Annacone guided Federer to 2 Titles there, in both 2010 and 2012. In fact arguably in Federer's "peak" years, 2004-2007, (when he won 11 Majors in 4 years) he lost at the Cincinnati Masters in the 1st Round and the 2nd which were far worse losses by any measure. Let that sink in, Federer lost 1st round and a 2nd round at Cincinnati during his prime.

Before hiring Annacone, Federer had just lost at the FO and W in the QTRS snapping 23 SF or better Majors appearances streak,
with Annacone Federer made it to eight more Grand Slam semifinals, won Wimbledon in 2012 and returned to the top ranking spot in the world, where he broke Sampras' record for most weeks at the top. AFTER Annacone, Federer had a 3 year drought of zero Major wins (2014-2016), including a career low YE ranking of 16.

Aren't statistics grand?

 

[brokenshoelace]

As if you know.

I don't claim to have sources though, and if you for fucking once, get off that high horse of yours, you'd understand how fucking stupid it is that a random guy on an internet forum has sources inside hte Federer camp. You're the queen of meaningless "get in line" replies that actually make no sense beyond "hey, that was mean, knock it off!"

I might be a jerk, but even when I'm being a dick, my posts have substances. "As if you know." I never claimed to know why Fed did what he did, but I sure as fuck know that Anti-Pusher has no sources inside the Fed camp.

 

[Moxie]

I don't claim to have sources though, and if you for fucking once, get off that high horse of yours, you'd understand how fucking stupid it is that a random guy on an internet forum has sources inside hte Federer camp. You're the queen of meaningless "get in line" replies that actually make no sense beyond "hey, that was mean, knock it off!"

I might be a jerk, but even when I'm being a dick, my posts have substances. "As if you know." I never claimed to know why Fed did what he did, but I sure as fuck know that Anti-Pusher has no sources inside the Fed camp.

I don't see how it's a "high horse" to point out that you're being a dick, which you're admitting, so I don't see the problem. I made a comment because you go out of your way to do it with AP.

 

[Ricardo]

I don't see how it's a "high horse" to point out that you're being a dick, which you're admitting, so I don't see the problem. I made a comment because you go out of your way to do it with AP.

yeah well he has a dick and you don't, is that why you whinged?

 

[Ricardo]

As if you know.

As if you know that he doesn't know. As if you can't use common sense to know, that someone who claims to have 100 billions in the bank on a public forum, is full of shit...….and I don't need to prove it, as if 'you know'. AP is known to talk bs, a recent one where he claimed Bill Gates queued up for his speech....etc, his sources in Fed's camp, plus his countless intimate encounters with the superstars, sorry its getting ridiculous...and you have problem that someone called him out for it?

 

[mrzz]

Trying to go back to the original spirit of the thread, I have a bit of a hard time accessing Federer's results under Annacone. @Jelenafan's stats above cannot be dismissed, that is, if you look at Federer post 2008, what happened under Annacone is "average" in the sense that it has some highs as well as some lows. You cannot dismiss the Wimbledon win, but on the other hand Federer will always be a threat there and there is an aspect of "randomness" in each win. Was Federer much better in 2012 Wimbledon than in 2014 Wimbledon? Hard to tell. Yes, there were moments of absolute brilliance in his 2012 win over Murray, but had he won in 2014 we (Federer fans) would simply have seen the highlights of that final 24324 times more, and found out tons of moments of brilliance as well. In the end, we always judge entire time spans based on what happened on the course of 5 minutes (in this case, the last five minutes of the 2014 Wimbledon final).

Tennis is simply way too mental to make an assessment based on pure results -- specially if you are trying to differentiate between similar results (and, yes, runner up and champion are similar results. Before you scream, compare it to champion and R1 loss). A guy can simply be playing at a general higher level and fail to execute at the key moments (compare Federer Wimbledon finals from 2018 and 2019, for example).

So, in a nutshell, I don't think the results from Annacone's years are different enough from the average to serve as an indicator in either direction. You must try to analyze what you see in court (as subjective as it may be) to get a conclusion -- and that is why I like the "spirit"of this thread. The part that I don't like about it is using Nadal as barometer. I mean, if Federer hired Annacone with an eye in Nadal, then yes, it was the dumbest move of all time, but frankly speaking this is not 2006/2007 anymore, any decision based on his Nadal match up at that point would be idiotic in the first place, for more than one reason that I won't list here.

I do remember watching Federer play during those days and having a feeling that something was pretty wrong (yes, that is as subjective as it gets). There were things I liked -- some renewed attacking spirit -- but the game as a whole seemed, well, unbalanced. In a way that was expected, you could see that he was being actually coached -- not following his instincts, but that felt strange anyway.

Edberg's days seemed a step forward, maybe Edberg's virtue was to find a way harmonize some directions given earlier by Annacone with Federer's natural instincts. It was surely waaaay nicer to watch Federer play under Edberg than under Annacone -- of course some exceptions along the way.

The larger frame notwithstanding, in hindsight it all seemed like the necessary steps for him to reach his post 2017 level. In one of my extremely rare moments of rest in these last two months, I found myself in front of the TV one sunday morning and they were showing the AO 2017 final. There is no doubt that the shot that won that match was the back hand -- simply way too many rallies that the bh stood firm, not to mention the winners. But the willingness to come forward was there, and that you can trace back to Annacone. Yes, Federer always has been an wonderful net player, but pre Annacone (specially if you look at post 2008), he lost that fluid ability to suddenly find himself at the net -- and then after that it was Annacone that added add those "artificial" charges forward that some people still don't like, but I really see the point in those. Edberg further polished an already marvelous net game, but the net attacks as a "plan" rather than a natural reaction (or a desperate move) are from Annacone -- and that was surely a contributing factor to the 2017 AO win -- a few key points were won just forcing Nadal to try a difficult pass.

In other words, I don't wish he never hired the guy, I just wish he left him sooner.

 

[Nadalfan2013]

Federer has made some bad decisions but how can we forget his best decision ever which was to hire Pepe so that he can infiltrate Djokovic’s camp for many years?