Sounds like a good plan for the man who has been the “iron man” of tennis. Missing just one tourney = a month off? Good call. Get better Fed!

September 23rd, 2011 at 9:49 am

Seems like the right decision. He needs to be in top form in order to defend his points at World Tour Finals. One thing still rings true. Even with Novak’s high level, a top form Roger means zero chance for Novak, as evidenced in FO and USO 2011 semis. He’d have handily won that USO match if he hadn’t dropped his level so dramatically during the last 3 sets.

September 23rd, 2011 at 11:09 am

Future World #4 Roger Federer has too much to defend between now and end of the year.

September 23rd, 2011 at 11:35 am

Had Roger not dropped his level in matches at AO, Dubai and IW, he would’ve swept this years series against Nole. Being able to keep game level high throughout the match and tournament is what makes a difference between #1 and #3.

Dropping sets after having a set point in first, and serving for the fourth (with pair of sets decided by tie breaks) doesn’t feel like zero chance to me.

September 23rd, 2011 at 11:43 am

@Humble Rafa Says:
Future World #4 Roger Federer has too much to defend between now and end of the year.
————————————————–
much to defend but not much to prove.
the reverse hold true for the other top players.

September 23rd, 2011 at 1:13 pm

A “Roger” strike :-))!

Way to go, Fed. Have fun wasting gezillions break points/game points/set point/match points/rank points/frequentflyer points! Just make sure those old bones last on tour as long as possible.

September 23rd, 2011 at 2:14 pm

There is some breathtaking “logic” from people here. Roger would have won various matches if he hadn’t “dropped his level”. In other words, he would have won – except that he lost. Wow!
Is it so hard to grasp that the “dropping of level” is not some temporary unaccountable blip, it’s a part of his decline from his great days.
As the poet said, “Time and tide wait for no man”.

September 23rd, 2011 at 2:58 pm

Federer’s defending 600 points in Shanghai, but current number 4 Murray is defending 1000 (last year’s champ). So unless Murray wins the title again, Fed will not lose much ground to him. Regardless, the difference between 3 and 4 is not as big a deal as 2 and 3.

September 23rd, 2011 at 3:52 pm

it will be a very sad day when roger hangs up his raquet,however like everything in life all good things must come to an end,although thats not to say that he does not have more grand slams left in him yet,which i personally still believe he does,i think as long as he enjoys playing and still cares,he should carry on ,the day he stops caring is the day he should retire,untill then we should enjoy watching him while we still can.

September 23rd, 2011 at 4:37 pm

3 and 4 is not as big a deal as 2 and 3.
—
It is amazing how quickly the Fed fans make mental adjustments. Are you sure there is not much difference between 98 and 198, LOL.

September 23rd, 2011 at 5:05 pm

H.R., Federer fans have to make those mental adjustments. They don’t have any option and can’t do anything about it. Time and tide indeed wait for nobody and a person as “classy” and “humble” as your good self won’t be an exception in the future. bstevens’ point, however, is true in terms of seedings and draws. Djoker and your “holy humbleness” are firmly entrenched on the top:) It really doesn’t affect the “arrogant one” since the probability of meeting either one of these two in the semi final remains the same. It is high time Murray made his move. First, past a 30+ star and then, hopefully, past your “humble highness”:)

September 23rd, 2011 at 5:34 pm

:: Roger Federer Withdraws From Shanghai Due to “Nagging Injuries”

yeh its called Djokovitis.

September 23rd, 2011 at 9:23 pm

This is going to potentially be another one of the scheduling questions that players will raise. There is an Asian swing to the tour so having a 1000 series event in Shanghai does make sense, but when Paris and Madrid were the two 1000 series events after the US Open and Shanghai was the season ender there was time off for the top 8 guys after traveling to Shanghai. Now, it is play Shanghai and then head back to Europe to play more events. As for Federer being #4 – Murray won Queen’s Club and Cincy, he was no worse than a semifinalist at all 4 majors this year. Murray had some really odd losses and bad patches, but he did outperform Roger’s record at the slams 21-4 vs. 20-4 and won a couple or prestigious tournaments vs. Qater. Roger was more steady than Murray (see Indian Wells and Miami especially and was runner-up in Dubai), but if Murray passes him in the rankings by year’s end it would be justified.

September 24th, 2011 at 2:12 am

“”..30-year-old Federer said. “I have some nagging injuries that I need to address…”"

By definition, nagging implies something that keeps coming back, so I am pretty sure the mysterious ‘nagging injuries’ Roger refers to are of purely mental nature. More precisely, wasted match points against Novak – something that occurres annually every September, hence word nagging.

Roger was able to recover after wasted match points at the 2010 USO semi, but the repeated scenario this year hit him super hard. It was obvious at his post-match press conference, but that was just a beginning. I really believe he doubts himself against Novak from now on and will play with that uneasy feel (and look on his face) Rafa exhibited throughout 2011. Actually, Roger has already shown that look it after 5-4 in the fifth set – ‘dead man walking’ look.

I may be wrong, it’s always a possibility, but the best thing about all this is that I’ll be able to verify my theory in about 10 months. And even if I’m wrong, I will be understood and excused by Federer fans.

After all, it was “Swiss Maestro” that uttered famous response “They say that very quickly. Let’s talk in six months again.” when asked if the era of Fedal dominance was over after a clean 3-0 semi-final defeat by Novak in the 2011 AO.
Six months and more have passed and Novak is almost 7 thousand (7000!) points ahead of Roger – so much about ‘let’s talk in six months’ statement.

Roger was clearly wrong, it happens to the best of us. I have a feeling I will be proven right, though.

September 24th, 2011 at 4:27 am

“so much about ‘let’s talk in six months’ statement”

All he said was “Let’s talk in six months again”. That was all.

“Roger was clearly wrong”

All he said was “Let’s talk in six months again”. That was all.

September 24th, 2011 at 6:25 am

Nagging injuries…. more like savin’ up all his lovin’ for the WTF! Bring it, yo.

September 24th, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Djokovic fangirls can gloat all that they can. Their player has certainly given them a lot to gloat about and those fangirls, especially of Serbian origin, can be excused and forgiven for a lot of things since they haven’t had much else to gloat about. However, to say that Roger is somehow so psychologically scarred that he wants to avoid Djokovic is, well, nuts. He has suffered much more heart-breaking losses against Nadal but never shied away from playing him even on clay. Had he been so down, he wouldn’t have taken a long-haul flight to play three back-to-back best of five matches in Australia. He has always listened to his body and taken R&R very seriously. He has skipped a section of the Asian swing in the past too. There is no secret to his relatively injury-free career. More important, he is no spring chicken. At his age, everything becomes just a touch more difficult. He is still giving himself a chance. It doesn’t require a genius to figure that he will increasingly become more and more of an underdog against many of the younger top guns in the future. Nadal and Djokovic will reach that stage too. That is the way it works no matter how good a player was in his prime.

As for his post-AO comments, you would have to be a Djokovic devotee if you really thought that one slam win was enough evidence to suggest that Fedal dominance was over and Djokovic’s was about to begin. Hindsight is always easy. Djokovic’s mom said something very nasty and distasteful about Federer after his loss in 2008 AO and had to wait for three more years to see her son lift his next slam. Any rational person would have said what Federer said i.e. wait for some more time. The crucial thing was that he wasn’t answering just for himself. He was answering for Nadal too and Nadal was very much there, winning RG and reaching the wimbledon final. He was there in the US Open final too. Huge credit to Djokovic for beating him all the time. One could justify the criticism if the question only referred to Federer because, clearly, his probability of winning is diminishing every passing day. Even then, do you really expect a champion to say that they are there just to make the numbers? Has he said anything similar after those six months? I have seen him praise Djokovic more than once for his streak earlier and the brilliant season he has had.

September 24th, 2011 at 2:48 pm

Even in hindsight, Roger was not completely wrong when he said “let’s talk in 6 months again”, given that the question was about him and Rafa. As we all know, Nadal did win the French and Fed also made it to the final there by beating Nole. In addition, Nadal made it to two other slam finals and Fed was one point away from the USO final. No one can say these two are completely out of it. Sure Novak is having one of the greatest seasons ever but I say let’s wait till the end of next year and then maybe we can say whether the torch has been truly passed or not.

September 24th, 2011 at 4:41 pm

ncaa football is making me not like saturdays anymore….hope Maria can win Tokyo. Can’t believe she is ranked #2 now. Strange because she certainly is still error filled with a crap serve.

September 24th, 2011 at 6:14 pm

kimberly – I have seen a tokyo draw. no serena,no clijsters either. hope kvitova can still play tennis

September 24th, 2011 at 11:21 pm

Roger and I are injured in the “head”. This “injury” takes a long time to heal. One way to fix it is to make the Egg illegal.

Can you believe that the Humble One and the Arrogant One are worried out the Egg.

September 25th, 2011 at 12:25 am

Kimmi – Na Li as well as Kvitova is struggling. Winning grand slams can be bad for your health it seems. But Kvitova’s game is always balanced on a very thin line. So she in particular can’t afford to have her head up in the stars. Give it time, and I think she’ll recover her touch. Still, it’s likely to be a wildly up and down career.

September 25th, 2011 at 4:53 am

grendel: not tennis related so sorry everyone else, just skip this. Watched last episode of “Spiral” last night and was gob-smacked that the red-haired lawyer destroyed the rape evidence! Why on earth would she do that? Any idea? Or is it just a plot device and she’ll get her come-uppance in the future? She didn’t series 2, though.

September 25th, 2011 at 8:50 am

grendel – “Winning grand slams can be bad for your health it seems” ha ha, for these girls it seems so indeed. First time GS winners, everything can be overwhelming. Li Na,the first chinese GS winner,it was like a big life change after that win. she got a lot of big time endorsements too.

They all need to come back to earth now. It will be interesting to see how sam stosur bounces back.

September 25th, 2011 at 9:04 am

hard to believe it is the first title for florian mayer. He can be very good. He played great this week. The final against pablo andujar was a rout. I enjoyed both his semi and the final. love his variety.

September 25th, 2011 at 9:30 am

margot- sorry, there’s just so much of this stuff, I just for the life of me can’t remember. But she’s quite something isn’t she, the redhead lawyer – I mean as a presence, not as a sexpot. She casts wonderful, lingering looks, full of a kind of amused scepticism, contempt even and yet with a touch of compassion. Quite a stew. You see her occasionally in french films, for instance that one about the chap who wrote his [true] story by blinking his eyes appropriately when presented with the alphabet. (he was virtually paralysed following a crash.)

Kimmi: I’ve always liked Mayer, he strokes the ball delightfully and gives even the best trouble for a bit before they figure him out. Nice to see him win something.

September 25th, 2011 at 6:22 pm

I don’t think we need to wait another six months to say that torch has been passed. It already has been, it’s only going to depend on Novak and his body how long he will be on the top.

September 25th, 2011 at 9:45 pm

bstevens Says:
Federer’s defending 600 points in Shanghai, but current number 4 Murray is defending 1000 (last year’s champ).

Ehh……………..Federer’s not defending 600 points in Shanghai, he’s losing them……he won’t be playing! Murray, on the other hand, IS defending 1000 points…….he will be playing (at least for now…..)

September 27th, 2011 at 5:47 am