Roger Federer is the reigning five-time defending champion at Wimbledon, but more question marks than ever surround his bid to claim a sixth straight crown.
These question marks come from his uncharacteristically poor performance in the French Open final where he lost to Rafael Nadal in straight sets, winning only four games in the entire match. Federer has not won any of the five Masters Series tournaments played this year, and for the first time since 2005, he enters Wimbledon without an Australian Open title under his belt.
Federer knows questions are being asked about his game. "I haven't been reading and I haven't been listening to what has been said. So, of course then I haven't been affected either," said Federer in a post-match interview after easily winning his first-round match on Monday.
But when it comes to grass court tennis, the playing field tilts heavily in Federer's favor. Federer easily won the Wimbledon warm-up tournament in Halle, Germany, last week without dropping a set or his serve.
"I couldn't do any better than not dropping a set, not dropping a service game, so I feel like I'm right there to do the same thing again this week."
Much has been made about Federer's tough road to a sixth Wimbledon crown. The draw had placed third-ranked Serb Novak Djokovic in Federer's half instead of Nadal's, and former champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia lurks in Federer's quarter. Djokovic unexpectedly lost his second-round match to a resurgent Marat Safin in straight sets on Wednesday. Safin is not expected to be a serious threat on grass to Federer.
Federer beat a potentially dangerous opponent, Sweden's Robin Soderling, in the second round on Wednesday 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Given Nadal's impressive triumph at the Queen's Club two weeks ago, Federer's real test will come in the final against his conqueror at the French Open, assuming he gets that far.
But Federer still has to be the favorite to win at Wimbledon although the gap between him and Nadal is narrowing.
The second half of the tennis season sets up very nicely should Federer win Wimbledon and silence the naysayers. The top three ranked men will each have won a grand slam title this year and the battle for number one at the end of the year will come down to the U.S. Open.
Feeds