By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday May 19, 2021
After his tough loss to Felix Auger-Aliassime on Wednesday in Halle, a disappointed Roger Federer took two and a half hours to come to the press room to talk to reporters.
Federer, who usually comes right in after losses, to get his press duties out of the way, said he needed time to digest what he considered a confounding loss.
"Today I felt like I needed time - I needed time to digest the third set," he said. "I was unhappy about how it ended. Similar to Geneva in some ways where I felt like I played actually good in spells, but it was up and down."
Federer seemed to hint that he is having too many lapses in concentration, and isn’t buoyed by the eternal positivity that guided him as a younger player.
"It had good moments and bad moments in that match, he said."It's a bit up and down but that is, I guess, part of the comeback.
"I thought the first set was really good, actually, and the second set was okay," he said. "I guess when I got down a break, I guess I got disappointed in myself that I was allowing the points to be played the way they were being played."
Federer has played three events since he took the court in Geneva in May, but he was unable to build on his three victories at Roland-Garros by putting forth a strong performance on the grass in Halle, where he is a 10-time champion.
Today’s loss marks the first time that Federer has lost before the quarterfinals at Halle in his 18 appearances at the event.
"At the end things went very quickly but it had a lot to do, I believe, with where I was at," he said. "I just think the consistency, point for point, has not been easy for me in the comeback and I knew that's what it is going to take. But again the good thing coming out of a match like this against a great player is that I know what I need to think about moving forward, because clearly I need to do a bit better."
Federer admitted that he was unhappy not just with his tennis, but his attitude. He says the comeback is getting to him, perhaps because he is finding it frustrating that he is taking so long to find his top form. As Wimbledon looms, it is no time to be encountering a crisis of confidence, but that is the reality of Federer’s current situation.
"It was not a good attitude from my side," he said. "I was disappointed in the way I was feeling on court, the way things were going, that I'm not getting better spells and all that stuff. I just think that the whole difficulty of the comeback got to me as well a little bit. How much I have to push on every point to try to make things happen and I realized it was not going to be my day.
“There was nothing I can do, I started to get really negative and this is not normally how I am, by any means, so I think this is not something I am happy about and proud about, but at the same time if I look at my 1500 matches I've played, these things can happen, but the good thing is that I know it will not happen the next time around, and the next time and the next time that I'm going to be on court.
“I think that's also one of the reason I wanted to take the time between the match and the press conference to truly understand why I feel this way, to speak to Ivan a little bit and just figure it out, and then straight away head up, look forward, don't take any silly decisions right now. Just stay positive and we take it on to the next goal, which is clearly Wimbledon, so we'll see then when I come back to Switzerland what the schedule is with all that stuff, but today was disappointing, no doubt."