Roger Federer: Poor Finish at French Open Kills Chances at Wimbledon

Of the three men's singles headliners at the French Open, only one looked leaps and bounds worse than the other two. Now, with Wimbledon only a couple of weeks away, the pressure is truly on Roger Federer to prove he can still compete with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

But after falling so short of their performances at Roland Garros, how well could it possibly bode for him at the next major on the agenda?

For much of the French Open, it looked as though Nadal's dominance couldn't be matched. Through the semifinals, he'd only lost 35 games, and meanwhile, both Djokovic and Federer had struggled to stay alive until they faced one another in the semis.

That was when Djokovic seemed to wake up and Federer just continued floundering. Djokovic destroyed Federer 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 in the semifinals, despite looking far from comfortable against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals just a couple of days prior.

Afterward, Djokovic talked about how he succeeded in raising his game in time to play Federer. Federer couldn't do the same and continued to struggle, as he'd done up to that point at Roland Garros.

If the top two players in the world can elevate their game when it's absolutely necessary but Federer cannot, it seems that we might know who will be left out once again at Wimbledon in a couple of weeks.

Of course, there's the possibility that Federer never stood a chance against Nadal or Djokovic on clay and that once he's back on a grass surface, he'll be much better. He, at least, seems to think so, as he told the Agence France-Presse: 

"

I'm looking forward to that. It's been a difficult clay court season. I wasn't in the best shape physically, to be quite honest. Still, it gives me a little bit of a lift, coming into the grass court season now. 

"

But Djokovic and Nadal—especially Nadal—have looked so dominant in the last few days that it's hard to imagine Federer will be up to speed, no matter the surface.

Perhaps the conditions are partly to blame, as Federer seemed to suggest. Perhaps it was too windy, too rainy for him to truly get into a rhythm. But Nadal and Djokovic both managed to rise above unfavorable conditions. Isn't that what champions do?

This wasn't a case of Federer looking good and then failing at the wrong time; it wasn't even a case of him being close. He was majorly outplayed at Roland Garros, and no matter the surface, it doesn't bode well for him with Wimbledon looming.