For the first time in 14 years, the Australian Open fourth round will not feature Roger Federer.
The great man was felled on Friday, in the third round of Australian Open 2015, by a display of brilliance, some brawn, and a lot of honest-to-goodness-bottle from Andreas Seppi. The perfect combination of a willing challenger and a challenged champion, ending 6-4 7-6(5) 4-6 7-6(5).
“Just a bad day,” Federer said frankly. “It had things to do with Andreas' game and with my game as well. You put those things together, all of a sudden you're playing a match you don't want to play.”
For Federer, it was rather reminiscent of the US Open in 2013. A resurgent opponent showing no mercy on his backhand, leaving him to mis-time the forehand, and then pick him off in the open space.
Seppi had also not beaten Federer in 10 previous meetings before Friday. He had won just one set, in Doha three years ago. He had also beaten just one member of the top 10 on 26 occasions. And yet on Friday at Melbourne Park, he showed up believing he could win.
“You don't play every day on a centre court, in front of a full stadium, against Roger Federer,” Seppi said. “But I was very calm. Is a special moment for me. I guess it was just an overall feeling I had today out on the court that I couldn't, you know, really get the whole game flowing. You know, was it backhand? Was it forehand? Was it serve? It was a bit of everything."
And Federer? He won’t be playing Nick Kyrgios in a dream fourth-round encounter. But he’s not going anywhere just yet.
“It's not like I'm playing shocking or I'm feeling shocking,” he said. “It's like one of those things you look back and maybe, yeah, I didn't feel so good. If I were you, I wouldn't read very much into that.
It was just a bad day. That’s life."
Indeed that's life, but he will be greatly missed and he was considered one of the contenders for the title.
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