Wimbledon: Roger Federer misses the semi-finals after losing five sets

Defending champion Roger Federer surprisingly dropped out of the Wimbledon quarter-finals and suffered his earliest defeat in five years at Church Road. On the unloved Court 1, the 36-year-old Swiss played off a 2-0 lead over US Open finalist Kevin Anderson (No. 8) at 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 4-6, 11-13. Federer missed a match point in the third set. The South African will now face either John Isner from the USA (No. 9) or the Canadian Milos Raonic (No. 13) in the semi-final.

By Ulrike Weinrich from Wimbledon

After 4:14 hours, Anderson turned his first match point and celebrated his fifth victory against Federer in the fifth duel, which was the earliest end in the grass court Mecca since 2013. At that time, he failed in the second round due to Sergiy Stakhovsky from Ukraine.

“I’ve told myself again and again that today is my day,” said Anderson immediately after his coup: “To beat Roger Federer here in Wimbledon will remain with me forever. I am happy, but I have to recover quickly. “After all, I want to play two matches here if possible.”

Federer came to the press conference a few minutes after his retirement and said: “I had my chances, but Kevin played very solidly and consistently. It was one of those days when you hope to get through somehow. I never really felt comfortable from the baseline today,” the superstar explained.

It was only the fifth time in his career that Federer was unable to take advantage of a 2-0 lead – the first time since 2011 – and the reigning Australian Open Champion will have to wait for his 21st Grand Slam victory and his ninth Wimbledon crown.

The match of Federer was listed on Court 1 – and not, as expected, on the Centre Court, his living room. For some, demoting to second place was tantamount to insulting their majesty.

Novak Djokovic (Serbia/No. 12) had complained about what he saw as an unbalanced “occupation” of the main court and demanded that it be set up on the world’s most important grass court. On Wednesday, the three-time Wimbledon champion finally won the duel with Kei Nishikori (Japan/No. 24) – as well as Rafael Nadal (Spain/No. 2) against Juan Martin del Potro (Argentina/No. 5).

Federer had most recently played France’s Gilles Simon on Court 1 in the quarter-finals in 2015. There he had also lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov (Russia) in the opening round of Wimbledon 18 years ago. It was speculated that the alleged banishment of the “Maestro” might have something to do with his statement about the strict dress code of the turf classic – 90 percent of the clothing must be white. “It’s fun that it’s different here, but it would also be nice to add some color, if I’m honest,” Federer had said about tradition.

At first, however, he did not let himself be dissuaded from his mission in a place that was unfamiliar to him. The first set was won by the favourite against Anderson after 26 minutes without allowing a single break point. As a result Federer weakened with his forehand and was trailing 1:3 after the first loss of serve.

But again and again he cheered himself on in Swiss German. When he threatened to lose his set at 5:6 and 0:30 with his own service, Federer picked up the pace again and saved himself – based on four strong serves in series – into the tiebreak.

However, in the third movement Federer allowed himself a period of weakness, which Anderson consistently exploited. At 5-4, he missed a match point on his own serve. Then the father of four missed three break points in a row with a 5:6 deficit – and lost the passage. Afterwards, the now almost flawless South African also gained more and more ground and was able to rely on his service in the decisive phase. Federer found it difficult to break free from the clasp, also yielded sentence number four.

Boris Becker was concerned in his function as BBC commentator: “Roger could have actually already been in the dressing room. He hasn’t been in this situation for a while.”

In the fifth round, the “FedExpress” was again unable to take advantage of two break chances on a 4:3 lead, but remained unscathed for a long time on its own service. The exchange of blows became a test of nerves, Anderson then used his first break point in the final set when he again benefited from a forehand error by Federer.

A little later he was the radiant winner – and Wimbledon shocked by Liebling Federer’s retirement. In the second set, the record-breaking Grand Slam winner also took his first break after winning 85 service matches at the grass court tournament in London.