“Nice Entrance Nice Send-Off” – Roger Federer Opens up on Loss Against Novak Djokovic

Whenever the ‘Big Three’ play against each other on Grand Slam courts there’s a hype revolving around the tennis world. However, for the 50th episode of Roger Federer vs Novak Djokovic, the tennis audience was not expecting a marathon five-set thriller at Australian Open 2020. The fans weren’t surprised by the one-way traffic on Novak’s road. He dispatched Roger 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-3 in the semifinals of Melbourne.

The third seed Roger Federer stepped on the court as an underdog and had minimum expectations. After he escaped a lethal scare in the quarterfinals of Aussie Open, he revealed that he had pain in his groin. Also after his last-eight round victory, the Swiss canceled his practice sessions.

“Today was horrible, to go through what I did. Nice entrance, nice send-off, and in between is one to forget because you know you have a 3% chance to win. You know, got to go for it. You never know. But once you can see it coming, that it’s not going to work anymore, it’s tough,” Roger Federer reflected.

“I can play better” – Roger Federer

The Swiss admitted that he did not give his 100 percent. He was unable to overcome the prowess of fit Djokovic. Nevertheless, Federer was contented with his performance in Melbourne, also the Australian Open 2020 was his first tournament since ATP World Tour Finals 2019.

“No, look at the end of the day I’m very happy. I think I overall played all right. I know I can play better. At the same time I know I can play much worse. With no tournaments beforehand, I think it’s a very, very good result,” Roger Federer said.

He hasn’t really felt this way frequently in his career. During the ATP Finals 2014 championship match, Federer was scheduled to play Djokovic, but at the end moment, he pulled out due to a back injury and gave a walkover to the Serb.

“I’ve had a few matches throughout my career where I’ve felt that way. It also happened the same way. Better that than zero, I tell you that. London was the worst, having to go apologize to people for not being able to walk properly in the finals there. So I’d rather have this, to be honest,” Federer continued.

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World Number three Roger Federer has played a total of 1513 ATP matches in his career and he has lost 271 of them, but surprising the Swiss has never retired in the middle of an encounter.

“So like I said, I did believe there was something that could be done today. And also must have felt like at least it was probably not going to get worse. If it did, this would have been my first retirement today,” Federer continued.

Out of the 50 times, the two aces have locked horns against each other, Novak Djokovic has won 27 of those.

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