Retirement Robs Fans of Federer’s Magic & Djokovic’s Grind

First it was Martin Klizan who retired unceremoniously in the 2^nd set while down 6-3, 2-0 against Djokovic.  Klizan apparently was injured in the legs somewhere and showed signs of it while having to stretch or double up for far out balls.  After his 2016 US Open experience, Novak probably is not overly excited about walkovers from opponents as it left him a little short on match-toughness for his final encounter against Stan Wawrinka.  However, Djokovic is coming off a win at Eastbourne last week so he is not lacking match practice by any stretch of imagination but a few more of these walkovers and he’ll be out of of his competitive best again.

Roger on the other hand was cracking the whip in his charged up and entertaining match against Dolgopolov.  Roger dominated the 12 games they played but every once in a while was left flummoxed by his opponent’s unconventional yet spectacular shots which could have easily disrupted the rhythm of all except the big four.   However, all of a sudden when down 6-3, 3-0, Dolgopolov decides to give up the battle, whereas, he appeared to be moving just fine for the 43 minutes prior to his abrupt retirement.

Federer’s response to media’s query on possible reason for Dologopolov’s retirement only exacerbated the intrigue surrounding the situation!  “His explanation to me is that he felt too much pain on the serve, maybe on the jump, that’s what he told me,” Federer said.   For an erratic player, Dolgopolov seemed to be serving just fine and even produced two aces against Roger.

More importantly, why did Dolgopolov and Klizan or Janko Tipsarevic, who also withdrew from his match, even play the tournament when they knew they were not fit enough to play.  Apparently, they did it for the paycheck.  Wimbledon or the appropriate body governing such issues for slams must look into this matter pronto as it is  highly unfair for fans to be given half a show or no show, in some cases, when they have paid full price for the ticket.

It may not be fair to blame the players entirely as they work hard to make it to the main draw of a slam and for those not ranked in top ten a $45,000 paycheck is not easy to forego.   However, in the long run, it is imperative that the players realize that they exist because of the fans and it’d be nothing short of stupidity of epic proportions to annoy and disrespect fans by not giving them their time’s and money’s worth.

Federer and Djokovic managed to get a feel for the grass on center court.   Novak seemed a bit error prone on his backhand down the line but his return of serve was as crisp as ever.  It seems Novak may just be on his way to regain old form.

Roger was uncontrollable with his serve and had 10 aces in about six service games prior to Dologopolov’s retirement.  He even hit a significant personal milestone of hitting 10,000 career aces during the match; however, Roger’s return was equally spectacular and he put tremendous pressure on  Dolgopolov’s serve which resulted in low first serve percentage of 46% and 4 double faults in about six service games by Dolgopolov.

Djokovic’s and Roger’s first round performances suggest that they are both set to play the second week at Wimbledon.