Roger That!
The big question right now – “Can Federer continue his form in New York?”. With lack of stability in further stages of the tournaments, Roger has struggled to win a Grand Slam since 2012 Wimbledon. Djokovic is the top seed for a reason—and going for his third major of 2015, fresh from a Wimbledon title beating…..Federer. Just a little while ago we spent time talking about Roger’s possible retirement, to which he responded “Can I not just enjoy playing the game without people writing me off to retire”.
However… hold on. Federer looked John Oliver-sharp in Cincinnati. At the age of 34, he still has the ability to be the best. He was all over the court, literally swimming, Djokovic had no answer to Roger’s shenneningans. Let’s not forget how similar Cincinnati courts are to the ones in New York. With the centre court having a roof, this favour roger even more with the conditions that the players may be faced with. The US Open is played on synthetic courts, like the Australian Open, but the courts at Flushing Meadows are known to play almost as fast as the lawns of Wimbledon. Only, the bounce is higher and truer. Often, strong winds get caught in the bowl-shaped Arthur Ashe Stadium and swirl around, making it hard for players to dominate.
The only fear on Roger’s way is certainly his country-man – Stan “The Man” Wawrinka, as Stan can deliver his excruciating forehand and outpower any opponent on his way, incluiding the likes of Nadal, Djokovic or Federer.
The main question is however, does winning in Cincinnati have any effect on player’s chances in New York. Looking at the past 11 years there’s some serious correlation, player was more likely to win the Open if they managed to win either one of North American hard court warm-up tournaments… Only since Federer lost the Open in 2009, just 2 of 7 Open winners have won either Canada or Masters event, telling us that momentum doesn’t exactly carry over. Let’s throw out Cilic, a clear outlier who’s the only player besides Del Potro who’s won a Grand Slam since the 2005 Australian Open that isn’t named Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray and Wawrinka. When you do that, you see something interesting. The U.S. Open winner in every year since 2004 has either played in a Cincinnati/Canada final or won Wimbledon earlier that summer.
What does that mean? It means Djokovic, Federer and Murray are all favored to win, as The Djoker won at Wimbledon and made the finals of both hard-court warm-up events, and Federer and Murray took home the title. Or someone, like a Cilic, could come out of nowhere. In other words, it means nothing.
Also huge: Federer earned enough points with the win to stay at No. 2 in the rankings, ensuring he wouldn’t face Djokovic until the U.S. Open finals, an enormous moral victory that looked to be all but impossible one week ago.
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