Will Roger Federer win another Grand Slam in 2020?

By the year 2009, Roger Federer had accumulated 15 Grand Slam titles. He had won the Career Slam by lifting the French Open title, and entered the new decade as the king of the tennis world.

This particular decade has seen Federer managing to win just 5 Grand Slams. Rafael Nadal has accumulated 13 Grand Slam titles during this duration and Novak Djokovic has won as many as 15. 

Truth be told, Federer has had diminishing returns by his lofty standards. The Swiss maestro delayed the inevitable with an incredible resurgence in 2017 and 2018, where he won three Grand Slam titles to take his tally to 20.

However, in the past year and a half, he has looked vulnerable and allowed players far inferior to him to suddenly gain prominence. 

In the 2018 Wimbledon, Federer should have closed out the match in the third set against Kevin Anderson.

In the US Open later that year, John Millman shot into the spotlight by bundling out the Swiss maestro in the fourth round. In the 2019 Australian Open, Stefanos Tsitsipas beat the great Swiss in four sets in the quarterfinal.

In the French Open semifinal, his old nemesis Rafael Nadal pummelled him in straight sets although Federer did look competitive in the early stages.

At Wimbledon though, Federer seemed to return to his regal self. However, he once again failed to deliver the killer punch and surrendered to Djokovic despite having match points in the final set.

In the US Open, Grigor Dimitrov picked up his first-ever win over the Swiss, knocking Federer out in the quarterfinals.

Now the question that is inevitably doing the rounds is whether Federer has another Grand Slam title in him, in the year 2020.

Federer is now 38 and should come to the realization that he does not have enough time left to add to his glittering collection. 

Djokovic has proved that the Australian Open is his forte. The Serbian has won six out of the last ten editions of the tournament and is hungry for more.

The French Open has always belonged to Nadal. Wimbledon was the one tournament where Federer always arrived as the favourite. However, in this decade, Djokovic has managed to win the Wimbledon crown on more occasions (5) than Federer (3). 

The US Open continues to remain a distant dream, with Federer not tasting success there since 2008.

Although the Swiss has done a fantastic job to remain competitive at the age of 38, it is unlikely he will ever add to his collection of 20 Grand Slam titles in the next year.

On top of that, the long-suffering NextGen'ers beneath him are finally starting to blossom. Stefanos Tsitsipas won the ATP Tour Finals this year. Other young players like Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev seem poised to make the slam leap. 

We're on the verge of a generational change, at last, but even if that takes another year to materialize, he still has Nadal and Djokovic to deprive him of winnable slams.

As of now, the number of rivals is on a massive high. His recent record in Grand Slams does not reflect well in this regard too. With courts becoming slower and the game changing rapidly, it needs to be said that FedEx is on the decline. 

And last but not the least, the age factor. Even the biggest of Federer fans will concede that he is not as intimidating as before.

With all such metrics put in perspective, I do not believe that Roger Federer would win a Grand Slam in 2020.

Featured image courtesy: Business Insider