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The explanation of what happens to Roger Federer

It is evident that Roger Federer something’s wrong with him. Anyone who is watching him play these days can see him. Beyond winning or losing, something logical within this sport is the sensations. What a player shows with his body language and with his blows. Those of the Helvetian say that there is something that is not working well, but not in what refers to the physical or his knee, but to what is happening inside his head. To this day, Roger is playing two games, the one he plays against his rivals and the one he plays against himself within his mind.

Paris, early June. Federer arrived at Roland Garros with a smile on his face and already in the press conferences he could be seen happy to be there again and to give himself the opportunity to gain pace for the grass tour. The Roger we saw just four weeks ago is very different from now. Everything went wrong on June 16 in Halle. After an acceptable first set, on the other hand, in the second something happens that makes him lower his arms completely in the third. He let go, when he suffered a break in that sleeve. Never, since a professional, have we seen Roger like this.

“This has not happened to me for a long time,” Federer said the other day on Media Day, already at Wimbledon. “It reminds me of my junior stage, remember, when out of nowhere, I no longer saw positivism anywhere. I don’t know why it is. I had a moment on a mental level, that I was not liking what was happening, “he added. In his first round in London, against Mannarino, the exact same thing happened to him.

Confidence problem

Forget the physical, the knee, the age. It has nothing to do with that. Roger is experiencing for the first time a situation that he has never experienced or felt before. Has doubts. Lack of trust. He knows that he is a couple of points behind the level that we all know he has, and when it comes to hitting, many times he does not feel with the necessary confidence and hence the problems he is having.

Before Mannarino, he threw too much backhand cut. Of that blow that he has totally controlled and that does not require him to take great risks. He played excessively in the middle. Simple balls, with margin. When he tried to attack and gamble, he failed many times. The “reeds” followed one another. One more proof of his anxiety, of wanting to hit soon without controlling the ball well. The right did not work, just, and he was very uncontrolled on this side of the track.

Rafa Nadal went through the same problem in 2015. Injuries and lack of confidence made him go through a state of anxiety that lasted for several months. Not being able to meet expectations and not seeing the end of the tunnel, caused these problems on a mental level that until practically in 2017 he could not solve.

The Federer thing has a similar color. Only when he was seen on the edge of the abyss against Mannarino, yesterday, was when he played looser. Once on a mental level he “lost his fear” of not meeting expectations, he could be seen being aggressive, attacking the net with hunger and hitting the ball better. The start of the fourth set is the true proof that nothing is wrong with Federer physically, but that his current problem runs through his head.

How do you solve that? Perhaps a call to his friend Rafa could get him out of the quagmire. That is what anxiety has, that as it comes, one day it goes away. “He had an internal problem, a burden. He did not control the timing of the point or the ball or the breath. By not controlling your breathing, you stop controlling everything else. He entered the track with a feeling of fear of failure. Not of losing, but of not being able to play ”, Nada commented on that problem a few years ago.

The positive part of all this is that it is not irreversible. As Nadal himself says, as it comes, one day it leaves. The solution to all this comes through several victories in a row. Some even offering a good level of tennis. Doubts and ghosts in the head are cleared with good results. Roger himself said it the other day. I know that if I advance several rounds at Wimbledon, I will get stronger. What better place to go back to being where you were than at the All England Tennis Club, don’t you think?

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