Roger Federer Goes Down In Wimbledon One Day After Dramatic Comeback
Roger Federer looked like his old self in a dramatic comeback on Thursday in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. On Friday morning, the 35-year-old tennis star almost took his second straight five-set match but fell short in the semifinals to Milos Raonic.
Roger Federer’s loss to Raonic makes Milos the first Canadian in history to reach a Grand Slam final. Raonic will now wait to see whether he’ll face Andy Murray or Tomas Berdych in Saturday’s finals. Federer, on the other hand, will go home, and there are some who believe this could be his last Grand Slam tournament.
Federer won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon 13 years ago. ESPN points out that he won his last Wimbledon just four years ago, but Federer has looked brittle and fragile since. Despite that fragility, Federer was able to roar back on Thursday against Marin Cilic after being down two sets to love to start the match.
That win follows what was Federer’s first missed major since 1999, which had some wondering whether he would even be able to make much of a run. The tennis superstar had to undergo his first ever knee surgery in February and has been dealing with an achy back as well. Despite the aches and pains, those watching the match believe Roger Federer got stronger as the match went on.
“What I like about being in a fifth set is you actually get really tested to see where is your fitness, where is your mind at, can your shoulder, your back, your legs — can they sustain 3 hours, 17 [minutes] of just hitting big serves, running, being explosive,” Federer said after the match.
While he seemed like he was truly energized for his match against Milos Raonic, he ultimately came up a little short. Raonic was on the attack from the very beginning, though he wasn’t able to put the veteran on the ropes the way Cilic had managed to do a day before.
Raonic took the first set, but Federer was able to battle back and win the second set thanks to a tiebreaker, 7-3. The two tennis players went back and forth in the third and fourth set, with Federer taking the third and Raonic taking the fourth.
In the fifth and final set of the match, Raonic stepped up and shut Federer down. On triple match point, the Canadian forced Federer to send a running backhand astray, according to the Guardian, and that was all she wrote.
It wasn’t long after Roger Federer lost the semifinals match that talk in earnest began about whether or not his career was about to come to an end. A well-known UK oddsmaker sent out the odds it saw for Federer retiring before the end of the year (10/1) and Federer retiring before Sunday (125/1). While those odds aren’t particularly high, it’s interesting that the discussion is following the veteran player around these days.
The defeat of Federer by Milos Raonic means there’s likely to be a very interesting matchup in the Wimbledon Finals. Andy Murray, who looks like the favorite to be Raonic’s opponent, is no stranger to the finals, but he tends to play a few of the same opponents such as Federer when he does make it that far.
The Canadian Raonic being in the finals has obviously already shaken up the field quite a bit. It means we won’t see a return matchup between Murray and Federer. That particular matchup was most recently seen in the 2012 Wimbledon finals. Just what is next for Milos Raonic will be determined tomorrow. What’s in the future for Roger Federer may take a bit more time to figure out.
[Photo by Pool/Getty Images]
