His game looks exactly like Roger Federer’s. They call him Fed Jr. He’s had some amazing results. He won the year end championships in 2017 and looked like he was on the rise. He was the 4th seed at the French Open. The expectations have always been super high, but 2018 has been a lackluster year so far. Let’s look at some of his results from Grand Slams and Masters 1000 tournaments thus far.

•  As the third seed, loses to Kyle Edmund in four sets in the quarters of the Australian.

•  As the third seed, loses to Fernando Verdasco in the first round of Indian Wells

•  As the third seed loses to Jeremy Chardy in the second round of the Miami Open

•  As the fourth seed loses handily to Nadal at Monte Carlo in the semi final

•  As the third seed loses to Milos Raonic in the second round of the Madrid Open

•  As the third seed loses to Kei Nishikori in the first round of the Italian Open

•  As the fourth seed loses to Fernando Verdasco in third round of French Open

Given he’s been the third or fourth seed at every single one of these Grand Slams and/or Masters series tournaments, there is no reason he should be consistently losing in the early rounds. What’s wrong with this guy? He just turned 27 and time is running out if he’s going to break through at a major.

Seems like before he won the year end championships in 2017 nobody was talking about him anymore. Most of the focus on who will take the torch from Nadal, Federer and Djokovic now falls on the likes of Zverev, Kyrgios, and Shapovalov. That’s a pity because he’s a great talent. It’s almost like he’s part of this lost generation of tennis players that were supposed to take the torch and failed to live up to the hype. I would throw Milos Raonic into this group. Marin Cilic and Del Potro, although have both won the US Open are also in their late twenties and peaked as one slam wonders. That being said, you can’t be that hard on these guys, given that nobody predicted Nadal and Federer still winning slams well into their 30s.

If winning slams well into your thirties becomes a trend not just for the Nadal’s and Federer’s of the world like Wawrinka has proven, maybe Grigor take comfort in studying how Wawrinka is doing it. Let’s not forget that Wawrinka was also considered a decent talent, but lacked consistency. Even after he won his first slam at the age of 28, most people considered him a one slam wonder. He then solidified his place in tennis history by winning both the French open and the US Open at the age of 31.