Roger Federer has been left searching for answers following his shock exit from the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The 18-time grand slam champion failed to take advantage of numerous opportunities against Russian world No.116 Evgeny Donskoy. During the two-hour clash, the 35-year-old failed to convert three match points in the second set, squandered a 5-2 lead in the third and failed to take advantage of his 5-1 lead in the final tiebreaker, enabling Donskoy to grab one of the biggest wins of his career.
“Don’t know where to start, really,” Federer said at the start of his press conference. “I had my chances. I should somehow close it out. Don’t know how it got away, but he did very well, and yeah, it’s a rough one, for sure.”
Wednesday’s loss ends Federer’s dream start to the year, which featured an eight-match winning streak. Taken back by his most recent performance in Dubai, the 35-year-old struggled to explain that exact reason as to what went wrong in his match. One issue the former world No.1 admitted to was his inability to hit back to the Donskoy serve.
“I thought I returned way better in the first round. Today I really struggled on the return. I didn’t quite really time it well,” he admitted.
“Maybe it wasn’t really committed enough, I think, you know. Commitment in tennis is a big thing. In the first round I was. Today I wasn’t, really. That sort of is a feeling you get and it trickles in an entire game, you know.”
Dubai is Federer’s third tournament since his comeback to the tour following a six-month hiatus due to a knee injury. Admitted that he was feeling tired throughout the entire day, the Swiss player is refusing to play the blame game as Donskoy prepares for a quarter-final clash against Lucas Pouille.
“There’s no excuses there. I just think it’s still the beginning of the comeback and gotta take the positives out of, you know, playing again a tournament where I feel I’m quite healthy and I’m happy I got over the (groin) injury I sustained at the Australian Open.” Federer positively reflected.
Facing the danger of exiting the world’s top 10 if Gael Monfils wins his quarter-final match on Thursday, Federer is unsure about what his immediate plans will be ahead of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
“I didn’t have time to speak to my coach yet. I’m more just trying to digest whilst I speak to you (the media) about what happened. We will look at the options and see what’s the plan.” He candidly responded when asked.
The two-week Indian Wells Masters tournament will get underway on March 6th.
