FEDERER SUFFERS UPSET AT WIMBLEDON
LONDON — Some people speculated that a good, competitive match Wednesday would sharpen top-seeded Roger Federer for the Wimbledon semifinals.
Others fretted that such a match might wear him out, when he’d need that energy to win the tournament for a ninth time.
In the end, it was door No. 3 — a jawdropping defeat, a surprising Fed-Exit.
The so-called King of Grass was unceremoniously clipped, with 6-foot-8 South African Kevin Anderson coming back from the brink of defeat to win, 2-6, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-4, 13-11. The match lasted four hours, 14 minutes and left the packed-to-the-rafters crowd at Court 1 as wrung out as the participants.
“I think the toughest thing players face when going out playing somebody like Roger in this setting is giving yourself a chance,” said Anderson, who will play American John Isner in a semifinal Friday. “I feel like the times that I’ve played him before, or other guys sort of with his ranking and history, I haven’t really allowed myself to play.”
This time, Anderson gave himself a chance. And capitalized.
The least surprised person in the venue might have been
Federer, even though Anderson had never won a set against him until Wednesday.
“There’s nothing that really shocked me because I’ve seen Kevin play many, many times in the past,” said Federer, who was 4-0 against the South African. “Even if the matches have been maybe sometimes one-sided, (and) I didn’t lose sets against him, you always know he can pick it up, and all of a sudden you won’t see breaks for some time.”
What the world won’t see is a Sunday rematch of Federer and Rafael Nadal, who 10 years ago played in a Wimbledon final widely considered the best match in the history
of the sport.
In the other semifinal, Nadal — a winner over Juan Martin Del Potro in five sets — will play three-time Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic, who had the breeziest match of the day Wednesday with a four-set victory over Kei Nishikori.
At one point deep in the Federer-Anderson match, an exasperated fan shattered the silence with a pleading wail: “I need to watch some football!” Indeed, the start of England’s World Cup semifinal against Croatia was fast approaching. The crowd responded with a sympathetic laugh.
Few thought the quarterfinal
would go this way, especially with Federer winning the first two sets to match his tournament record of 34 consecutive set victories. (He didn’t lose a single set in winning Wimbledon last year.) It was inconceivable that he would then drop three in a row, even against the world’s eighthranked player.
But Anderson, who was pushed to the brink of match point in the third set, held his ground and defied the odds. It was just the third time that Federer lost a Grand Slam match after taking a 2-0 lead, with the other two coming in 2011 at Wimbledon against JoWilfried Tsonga and the U.S. Open against Djokovic. Federer is now 266-3 in such matches.
“Especially with these long matches, saving your energy, especially emotional energy, is very important,” said Anderson, 32, who played collegiately at Illinois, lives in Delray Beach, Fla., and has applied for U.S. citizenship.