Roger Federer feels he would not have been good enough to defeat long-time rival Rafael Nadal in a blockbuster US Open semi-final after falling to Juan Martin del Potro at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
Fans were hoping for a headline showdown between Federer and Nadal in New York but 2009 champion Del Potro had other ideas as he upstaged the 19-time grand slam winner 7-5 3-6 7-6 (10-8) 6-4 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Swiss veteran Federer was uncharacteristically off his game in the big moments, both physically and mentally against the 24th seed, who saved four break points in a pivotal third set.<\/p>\n
Troubled by a back problem leading into the year\u2019s final slam \u2013 an issue which required medical attention during his last-16 win over Philipp Kohlschreiber \u2013 the 36-year-old revealed he never felt confident of adding to this year\u2019s Australian Open and Wimbledon titles in the Big Apple, insisting Del Potro is in a better position to overcome Nadal in the semis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even think about it, as I lost that match, that it\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d Federer said when asked if he was thinking about a potential matchup with Nadal. \u201cI\u2019m dealing with just trying to understand what happened and just to overcome this in the next few hours, days, weeks, whatever it is, you know. I\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course it is a pity, but, you know, Juan Martin deserves it more. I feel I have no place in the semis and he will have a better chance to beat Rafa, to be honest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way I played or playing right now, it\u2019s not good enough in my opinion to win this tournament. It\u2019s better I\u2019m out and somebody else gets a chance to do better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood thing is that I need a rest. I have a rest now, so that\u2019s good. That\u2019s actually the thing when I walked off the court, I was, like, Finally, I can rest,\u201d Federer continued. \u201cBecause I\u2019m tired. I put a lot into it. I was not sure I could play, to be honest, so I\u2019m happy I get a rest now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking about his build-up to the US Open, Federer added: \u201cI think there\u2019s definitely things that happened in the preparation and throughout the tournament that led to my performance today, because I can play much better but I can play worse, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was one of those matches where if I ran into a good guy, I was going to lose, I felt. I don\u2019t want to say I was in negative mindset, but I knew going in that I\u2019m not in a safe place. Might have depended too much on my opponent, and I don\u2019t like that feeling. I had it throughout the tournament, and I just felt that way every single match I went into.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have that feeling at Wimbledon or at the Australian Open, and that\u2019s why rightfully so I\u2019m out of this tournament, because I wasn\u2019t good enough, in my mind, in my body, and in my game to overcome these three pillars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re missing all three, it\u2019s going to be tough. I\u2019m okay with it, and I tried until the very end. And smashing certain stuff in the net that I normally wouldn\u2019t, smashing forehand volleys into the back fence, I mean, that stuff sucked. Honestly, it was terrible.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuan Martin did well. He served well, had some big shots when he needed to. That was the part, that he did so much better tonight, and that\u2019s why he deserves to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger Federer feels he would not have been good enough to defeat long-time rival Rafael Nadal in a blockbuster US Open semi-final after falling to Juan Martin del Potro at Flushing Meadows. Fans were hoping for a headline showdown between Federer and Nadal in New York but 2009 champion Del Potro had other ideas as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4118,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions\/4118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}