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"Just" 69 wins, eight titles and three Grand Slams - a bad year for Federer

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Tennis TV commentator Barry Millns looks at Federer's year and why it wasn't great by his own ridiculous standards

If Roger Federer wins every match he plays next week in Shanghai and retains the Tennis Masters Cup, he will finish the season with a 69/8 win/loss record, eight more titles to his name including three majors, plus the No.1 ranking (already assured). Not a bad haul and yet there are suggestions by some that he is starting to slip from his pedestal!

In the three previous seasons in which he also ended each year as the No.1, Federer's record was as follows: 2004 - 74/6, won 11 titles including three majors; 2005 - 81/4, won 11 titles including two majors; 2006 - 92/5, won 12 titles including three majors. It is worth noting that when Pete Sampras dominated the game, in the first four of his six successive seasons as the year end No.1, the American won 31 titles and had 52 losses, compared to Federer's 41 titles and 23 losses to date.

Federer's number of titles in 2007 is not as high as before partly because, aged 26, he has wisely reduced his schedule in order to be as fit and fresh for the main events as possible. As to his eight defeats this year, Rafael Nadal, Guillermo Canas and David Nalbandian all beat him twice, with Filippo Volandri and Novak Djokovic enjoying solitary successes against him.

If you take them in the order they came, Federer, currently trading at (1.68) to retain his Australian Open crown, had a problem with blisters in his Indian Wells loss to Canas, (290), but he should have won their re-match in Miami, having been a break up against the Argentine in the final set. Poor execution on key points ultimately cost him.

In Monte Carlo, Federer again reached the final before losing to Nadal, (11), the undoubted King of Clay, and so no disgrace in that. Although the Swiss star seemed flat in that match and even more so when he then lost to Volandri, (320), in Rome, his subsequent split with coach Tony Roche explained the turmoil he had been in and remember that Federer then beat Nadal for the first time ever on clay, to regain the title in Hamburg.

Even so, at Roland Garros the Spaniard again prevented Federer from winning that elusive major by beating him in another four-set final and, being five years younger, Nadal may well continue to do so. As to Wimbledon, Nadal's heroic threat to Federer's grass-court supremacy produced an electrifying five-set contest and there is no doubt the Spaniard has reduced the gap behind the Swiss on the quicker surface. But it was Federer who won again.

The loss to Djokovic, (11.5), in the final in Montreal was something new for him to deal with. But the young Serb was in the form of his life beating all of the world's top three in succession that week and when it came to their rematch on the biggest stage in New York, you know who won - Federer, in straight sets.

As for old adversary Nalbandian, (12.5), the resurgent Argentine proved too strong for everyone in the last two Masters Series, including Nadal and Djokovic, as well as Federer. Nalbandian's much improved serve and more aggressive use of his ground strokes, including that devastating backhand, proved a formidable combination even for Federer, both in Madrid and Paris.

There is no doubt that Federer got outplayed on both occasions and it is a shame that Nalbandian in such form won't be present next week in Shanghai. But the true test will come when they next meet over best of five sets in a major and it is nearly three years since anyone apart from Nadal beat Federer in one of those.

As Nalbandian said in Paris, "To be No.1 is not easy. You have to play like this all season and it's not easy playing like this in clay, in hard, in grass or indoors. I think the only guy who can make that at the moment is Roger (Federer). He's been doing that for four years."

I would still back him to do it for a fifth, but would you?

To read more about Roger Federer go to:

http://www.rogerfederer.com/en/index.cfm