Quote:
His skid started with a drop shot. At the French Open last year, Federer had put an end to Novak Djokovic’s white-hot streak in the semifinals and was manhandling Rafael Nadal in the final, taking an early lead, only to end a dramatic rally by attempting a dazzling backhand slice drop shot to win the set. Walking to check the mark, the umpire ruled the ball out by less than an inch. Federer seemed flustered after missing the shot, and Nadal won the game, then the next six, and eventually the match. At Wimbledon—Federer’s favorite tournament, partly because the faster grass surface favors his aggressive style of play—he was up two sets against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga but lost the match. This had never happened to Federer before; his record after having won the first two sets was 178-0.
Then it happened again. In the semi*finals of the U.S. Open last year, Federer was somehow in the same situation, up two sets against Djokovic, who was playing erratically—whereupon Federer lost his rhythm and Djokovic climbed back. In the fifth set, Federer fought his way to two match points. On the first of them, a Federer first serve wide to the forehand side, Djokovic rose up with a mixture of desperation and faith and appeared to hit the serve back harder than it came—a cold winner. Djokovic won the crowd with the shot, and the match was *essentially over.
Afterward, Federer was annoyed with the shot, which he believed to be lucky given that Djokovic was “mentally out of it.” *Federer wondered if that shot was somehow divine punishment from the tennis gods for all he’d achieved. “Maybe you’ve already won so much that it evens it out a bit sometimes,” he said at the time.