Roger Federer hates reporters at moments like this.

Are you slipping?  Will you ever win another major again?  Can you beat Nadal and Djokovic again?  Federer always gives the same answers.  He’s feeling good.  He expects to play 5 more years.  Stop asking him these questions.

Fans of Roger Federer are so used to seeing him dominant, beating players with ease, that they express discontent when he can’t beat the very best.  He’s like Chrissie Evert, who can no longer beat Steffi Graf or Martina, but manages to stay in the top 3 anyway.

Many players would give their right arm (admittedly, a disadvantage in tennis) to have Roger Federer’s problem.  Oh, boo-hoo, can’t beat the top 2 players in the world, but pretty much beats everyone else.  Let’s look at Roger Federer’s year so far.  Who has he lost to?

Novak Djokovic (Australian Open, Indian Wells, Dubai) and Rafael Nadal (Miami).

That’s it.

He’s been far worse in other years losing to Gilles Simon, Robin Soderling, Gael Monfils, Tomas Berdych, Marcos Baghdatis, and on and on.  All in all, Roger Federer is playing pretty good, just not at the lofty level he’s used to playing.  He didn’t expect Novak Djokovic, a player he beat 4 times in 2010 to make a leap up in skill and leaving him dangling.

Both Novak and Rafa have left Roger baffled.

For Roger to win, he needs a lightning fast surface that bounces low.  If he has that, his chances are pretty good.  It’s just that the ATP tour has conspired to give him slow, high-bouncing courts, even in hard courts.  And this is strange because faster courts would benefit Americans too, and yet, fans seem to want really long rallies.  Follow the French, someone should say!

Paris Indoors decided to put ultra-fast courts, and this lead to players like Michael Llodra making the semis of the Paris Indoors and Rafa Nadal to skip the tournament altogether citing a need to be ready for the year-end finals.

In the match last night, the courts were slow and high-bouncing, and Roger was left befuddled.  He looped his shots more than usual, but he couldn’t get enough zip on his backhand to prevent Rafa from teeing off whenever he felt like it.  When Roger got to net, he found balls dipping at his feet, and he would hit full strokes with his backhand only to hit it wide or deep.  When Roger gets in trouble, he just hits harder, or misses more often.

Rafa always seems to be there to get a ball when Roger goes for angles and Roger never seems to be there when Rafa aims down the line.

Roger had worked on a slice serve out wide to good effect in London.  The bad news?  Rafa simply adjusted by camping out further wide daring Roger to hit up the T, which he tried to do, but without great effect.  Roger even tried serving and volleying, often over-baking drop volleys wide or in the net, at least, when he had the chance to touch the ball.

The fact of the matter is Roger has improved some things in his game, but not at the pace at which Novak or Rafa have.  He’s improved his touch.  His backhand is a better shot.  But he’s not hitting crazy winners like Gasquet, and until he does, Rafa will be content to spin high shots to Roger’s backhand so he can open up the forehand.  Like Rafa, Roger has trouble moving to his right since he cheats to his left (Rafa cheats to his right).

What can Roger do?  It seems he’s hit something of a wall.  He doesn’t seem to be able to serve any faster.  He isn’t going into Karlovic territory.  He hits about 125 mph and lacks the crazy spin that makes Rafa’s serve so tough to handle.  He doesn’t seem to hit clutch serves very well.  Historically, break point against Roger equals missed first serve.  He’s no Pete Sampras or Boris Becker or John McEnroe for that matter that seemingly dug out aces whenever they got into trouble.  If Roger could do that, he wouldn’t have to find answers elsewhere.

He’s tried making his backhand bigger, but he lacks the huge backhand down-the-line which the best two-handers seem to have.  He might have sliced more against Rafa, but it seems that Rafa is completely unfazed by slice.  If you hit it too high or too low with little pace, Rafa will crank up his hitting.

We just haven’t seen that many new answers from Roger.  He’s clearly too stubborn to play a patient game a la Gilles Simon.  He wants to believe that going for his big shots at the biggest times will bail him out.  For him to concede that would mean playing like Roddick and Roger may not even be steady enough to play that kind of game, plus for a guy heading to 30, long rallies aren’t always the best.

He may conclude that, as bad as it seems, being number 3 isn’t the worst thing.  Chris Evert had to come to grips with this too.

With Rafa serving really well, I think we’re seeing the end of Novak’s streak, though I wonder what it would do to Rafa’s psyche if he lost again.  The real test will be clay to see whether Novak, who is a great clay court player can beat Rafa on his best surface.