Roddick rocking Federer's great aura

Among his stock responses is the lie that he would rather add another Wimbledon title to his collection than triumph once in Paris, but suddenly the verbal jousting about Roland Garros seems rather less relevant.

Following his defeat by Andy Roddick at the Sony Ericsson Open, it would be more appropriate to ask when Federer is going to win any sort of title, let alone the one Grand Slam that eludes him.

Three months and four tournaments into the year, he has yet to reach a final, with Roddick's 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 victory following those achieved over the World No 1 in 2008 by Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Mardy Fish.

Not wishing to encourage the 'What's wrong with Roger?' debate, Federer makes no serious attempt in public to analyse his sagging form, although he acknowledges a brief bout of glandular fever earlier this year.

In fact, there is probably not a great deal wrong with him or his game. It is just that every defeat strips away some of his aura.

Federer actually looked fairly sharp for much of his encounter with Roddick, and has performed better here and at Indian Wells than he did in 2007.

His problem against the American was more to do with what happened at some of the most pressurised junctures of the match, which tells you of the shift in belief between Federer and his opponents.

In the tie-break it was Roddick who ignored his 11 straight previous defeats by the Swiss to tough it out 7-5, aided by a serve that is back to its lethal best.

More telling was the game that saw the decisive break to love for 5-3 in the decider when the American held his own in the rallies and profited from Federer's miscued groundstrokes under pressure.

The errors indicated the uncertainty within the head of the Swiss player, something he has become totally unaccustomed to in the more than four years since he became world No 1.

His next tournament will be the ATP claycourt event in Estoril, then Masters Series events in Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg before the French Open.

The context for the defeat was the fine performance of Roddick, who was last night tackling Nikolay Davydenko for a place in the final.

'I felt like I was due, like he hadn't missed a ball against me for six years,' said Roddick, adding dryly: 'I went in knowing that nobody has ever beaten me 12 straight times before.'