Roger Federer vs. Gilles Simon: What Happened To Roger?

What was Roger Federer doing? His match against Gilles Simon was one of his most ungraceful wins in his career, barely winning 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.

What a disappointing win, one that I would not want to witness again.

He had never played like that in such a long time, despite the fact that it was only the second round and he had not made constant unforced errors.

So how could this have possibly happened?

He had won the first two sets, smashing Gilles, not having a care in the world; then, all of a sudden, he started falling from grace until Gilles was on par with score on him. That mostly was the cause of unforced errors.

Before in the third and fourth sets, Simon was hitting deep into his backhand, Federer was hitting it down the line and the deceptively quick Simon was hitting a great crosscourt forehand.

Federer’s usually short return of that ball allowed Simon to approach the net and attack.

Rather than raising his level, Federer shanked his groundstrokes. He had only won the match when he changed his style by getting better at his backhand and approaching the net to subdue Gilles.

If it was not for this, Roger could have just given up, covering a most humiliating defeat.

But what was happening? What could possibly have caused this to make Roger play at such a low level in the first place?

This may not have been the worst win of Roger, but this is definitely NOT the average level Roger would be playing at, especially not me, or you, would think either.