On Sunday, Roger Federer may be the most successful player of all time, but the tone in tennis, he is no longer alone on. An analysis

Actually, everything is as usual: Roger Federer is in the finale of the first major tennis tournament of 2009, the Australian Open in Melbourne. With a victory on Sunday against his biggest rival, the Spaniard Rafael Nadal, the Swiss finally the most successful tennis player of all time. It would be his fourteenth victory in a Grand Slam tournament. This would he the Americans Pete Sampras as the record holder sought eternal.

But Federer realizes that something is different this year. “I am surprised that some people say that I was no longer the same,” he said after his semifinal victory. Then he praises once himself: “I know that I play well. Only at the end of the tournament, you should evaluate a player,” he adds. In the round of sixteen, he would almost flew out of the tournament.

Even when he is in quarter-and semifinals Juan Martín del Potro and Andy Roddick in three sets defeated, and even if he should win the tournament – Federer is no longer invincible Überflieger of recent years. Since Nadal him in the summer of 2008 at Wimbledon and defeated from the very first place in the world has squeezed, he is out of balance: defeat at the Olympic Games, in New York victory, defeat at the World Championship Tennis.

On the one hand this is due to Federer matches itself, in which he spells his famous plays tennis, are less frequent. In recent times, he sometimes hampered. In key moments balls sailed into the presence of the dreaded backhand was often dangerous. Sometimes moving the 27-year-old, eleven years since the tennis pro is too slow. Sometimes, however flashes his exceptional talent still on, as during the 6:3, 6:0, 6:0-victory against del Potro. On this day, he convinced all critics, but his constant quality can no longer retrieve.

The crucial difference from the previous year, but somewhere else: the quality in men’s tennis has increased significantly, the world leaders has grown. Instead of one or two players are fighting a dozen young tennis pros at the big titles. Shakers as the Frenchman Gilles Simon, the Scot Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic of Serbia with all the force pushing upward. All three have Federer in the past year at least once defeated.

Especially against Andy Murray as Federer has not a good figure. A few weeks ago, he has for the fifth time he lost. As experts Murray as the title aspirants called for Melbourne, Federer was irritated. “Murray is his favorite?” He asked. A situation in which the successful Federer still used to.

Just like that, his beats are no longer sufficient to defeat Nadal. For fourteen months he has against the New World First is no longer won. And it does not look as if the change on Sunday. Nadal previously marched easily through the tournament, only in the semifinal, he had to play five sets. His opponents forced the Spaniards durchtrainierte a cat-and-mouse game. Almost every ball brings Nadal back on the grid. And even if he is three meters in addition to the playing field is crowded, he bangs the unattainable profit beats opponents into the field.

Just as in the third round in which his opponent Nadal had no chance. Its name: Tommy Haas. Instead of the great German tennis player in Australia only with big words struck. Haas sounded before his match against Nadal: “On a good day, I trust me, every beat.” And in an hour and a half abserviert.

Philipp Kohlschreiber, some time ago as a new German hopefuls traded, complained after his second-round Pleite on the game: “For me, it makes no sense, winning three sets to play.” He called for shorter matches, as in woman tennis. Then he attacked his opponent Fabrice Santoro: “I trust him no more. He will go down mercilessly.”

The defeats of Kohlschreiber and Haas reveal that the German players with the increased quality in men’s tennis is no longer able. More than ever, they are removed from the top: The nearly 33-year-old Rainer Schüttler is ranked 33 of the currently best German in the ranking. Haas is to place 79 slipped off. “Much worse was our tennis probably never,” said tennis icon Boris Becker. “We are in a drought period.”