By Franklin L. Johnson

(July 1, 2010) The competitive corpse is barely even cold and the tennis cognoscenti has already performed the post-mortem on Roger Federer's career.

The man who who took the tennis record book to places it had never been before in reaching a record 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals has now lost consecutive major quarterfinals, losing to Robin Soderling in the French Open quarterfinals and failing to summon his best tennis in yesterday's  6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, loss to Tomas Berdych. It was just Federer's third loss in his last 83 grass-court matches since 2003.




The six-time Wimbledon king not only won't be around for Sunday's final, he said he won't even watch it on TV.

"I don't think so, no. I'll be on vacation," said Federer, when asked if he would watch the men's final.

Distance from the final came in part because Federer had trouble closing the gap between his body and the ball. If you watched the quarterfinals then you saw Roger stretched out at times and off balance in other instances trying to respond to Berdych's blasts.

"I am struggling with a little bit of a back and a leg issue. That just doesn't quite allow me to play the way I would like to play," Federer said after the loss to Berdych in remarks some interpreted as an alibi from a disconsolate king.

Federer fought back from a two-set deficit to defeat Alejandro Falla in the first round in a sign of the struggles to come. And while the top seed rallied to win that match, he never fully recovered from the effort just to stay alive in the tournament.

I noticed his movement was sluggish, especially during the first two sets with Big Berd. Federer never fully opened his game which gives credence to his statement he was having back and leg problems (cynics stop snickering please).

His footwork was never crisp when he tried to run around his backhand. So he piled up a bunch of errors. The only problem was Big Berd finally grew up and took down the king in a major match.

Is it really that shocking?

Look, nearly every man who's been eating Roger's lunch lately is some big, bruisy monster masher like Berdych, Soderling, Rafael Nadal and Ernests Gulbis.

The problem an aging Federer faces is there's just too many of these man mountains for him to climb and there will be a few more added to the mix when Juan Martin del Potro comes back and we saw how Del Po dismantled Nadal and Federer back-to-back at the US Open last year.

I do not discount Roger Federer as a future Grand Slam champion again. It would be insane to write off a 16-time Grand Slam champion who can compete on all surfaces and who won a Grand Slam title a little more than five months ago.

But I will make this statement: Federer is done as No. 1.

He will drop to No. 3 in the rankings, behind Novak Djokovic and World No. 1 Nadal, when the new ATP rankings are released on Monday. It will be Federer's lowest rank since 2003 and I don't see him rising back to the top.

Why?

Because the father of two twin daughters has much more important matters in his life — his family — than globetrotting after Grand Slams, because the hunger inevitably dulls a bit after winning everything in sight, including 16 majors and because the young guns are firing with more ferocity now and Roger simply can't keep up with the barrage of blasts anymore.

Federer will fight the good fight, but the harsh reality of sport is no one — not even the greatest of all time — outlasts time.

This loss was more than a quarterfinal setback, this was the beginning of the end of the age of Federer. We've been fortunate to live through this glorious time, but nothing lasts forever: not even the remarkable reign of a once-in-a-lifetime player. 

Federer just doesn't have the juice left to hew down all these tall trees that may soon overshadow the former king of the tennis jungle. I gave him 18 to 24 months before the French Open and after seeing him play Wimbledon the reality is: Roger may have even less left in the career tank.


Tennis Now contributing writer Franklin L. Johnson is a writer, poet and avid tennis player based in New York. He has covered professional tennis for three decades