No Rogers Cup for Federer once again
Young German Zverev was too sharp for the all-time great in championship final
Montreal tennis fans might never see Roger Federer win the Rogers Cup.
The man many believe to be the greatest men’s tennis player in history has won the Canadian Open title twice, but both of those victories were in Toronto.
He’s 0-for-5 in Montreal after losing to Alexander Zverev 6-3, 6-4 in Sunday’s final and has lost the last four times he has been in the Rogers Cup final. With the 36-year-old Federer making his schedule on a week-to-week basis, there’s no guarantee he’ll be here when the men return in 2019.
If this was Federer’s last appearance in Montreal, it wasn’t a match that will be burned in anyone’s memory. While he said he would like to be No. 1 in the rankings at year’s end, it’s all about Grand Slams at this point in his career. Montreal is the first stop in his preparations for the U.S. Open, and he came here to get accustomed to the hard courts. Winning didn’t necessarily come into the equation.
On Sunday, Zverev was quicker. He hit the ball harder, and he served better. He had six aces to Federer’s two. He put 69 per cent of his first serves in play, while Federer was at 51 per cent. Zverev fought off the three break points against him, while Federer was broken once in each set.
“I don’t think it was the best I served in my career, but it was definitely a good serving day,” Zverev said. “My second serve, I try to be aggressive as well, try to put some pressure on that, not that he feels comfortable and is going to start being the one who is aggressive in the rally. When he is, you don’t have a lot of chance of winning the match. That I tried to focus on. Obviously, it worked.”
He said he noticed Federer lost some of the velocity on his serve at 2-2 in the second set and tried to take advantage of that.
The 20-year-old Zverev won last week in Washington and has five titles this season, including in two ATP Masters 1000 events. He’s the youngest winner here since Novak Djokovic beat Federer in the 2007 final. Zverev said he wouldn’t presume to say he’s knocking on the door of the game’s big four, but he did say he has established himself as a top-10 player. He’ll move up one spot to No. 7 in the new rankings Monday.
“It is a positive week in the end,” the second-seeded Federer said. “The final was unexpected. But it’s keeping up with the good results of this year. Playing the final was a good thing. Of course, I’m disappointed with today. I thought I would do better. I wanted to fight a bit more and make the match a bit tighter. I had opportunities. But Zverev played extremely well. He played well all week.”
This was a week for youngsters. The fourth-seeded Zverev is the poster child for the ATP’s NextGen program, and he had to beat another NextGen prospect, 18-year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov, in the semifinals.
Federer said he was impressed with the kids.
“I loved watching Denis play,” Federer said. “I think he had the matches of the tournament, with all these great three-setters that he had, especially the one against (Rafael Nadal). I think he caught the attention of the tennis world, and rightfully so. I really enjoyed watching him.
“Alexander has been around for a while now. Not a whole long time. But at this level, I’ve got to play him already now for the fourth or fifth time, practised a ton with him. We know each other well.
“I’m just really happy for him, to see that he’s taking everything not just to the next level, but the two next levels, winning two Masters 1000s,” Federer added.
Federer and Zverev are both entered in the ATP Masters 1000 event that starts Monday in Cincinnati, but Federer hasn’t made up his mind whether he will play there. He said he’ll do what he thinks is best for his U.S. Open chances.
“Winning my third of the year, my 20th Grand Slam, would be completely insane. I just hope I’m going to be 100 per cent ready when the moment arises.”