Roger Federer admits he “self destructed” on US Open 2013 fourth round loss to Robredo

World number seven Roger Federer admitted that he “self-destructed” in his straight-sets loss to Spain’s Tommy Robredo at the US Open 2013 fourth round match on Monday night. The 17-time Grand Slam champion will be finishing the 2013 without reaching a Grand Slam final, a first since 2002.

Federer produced a lot of unforced errors which tallied up to 43, compared to Robredo’s 26.

“I kind of feel like I beat myself, without taking any credit away from Tommy,” Federer said. “Clearly he was making sure he was making many balls. It was up to me to make the difference and I couldn’t. I kind of self destructed, which is very disappointing, especially on a quicker court. Your serve helps you out. You’re going to make the difference somewhere. I just couldn’t do it. It was a frustrating performance today.”

This is a surprise defeat for the Swiss star, who had a perfect 10-0 head to head series record over Robredo but the Spaniard was bent to stop the streak and his perseverance paid off.

“It’s not that much of a disappointment at the end of the day,” Federer said, referring to a highly anticipated quarterfinal match against rival Rafael Nadal that will no longer happen. “If I’m playing like this, I’m not going to beat Rafa, or Kohlschreiber, for that matter… I was fighting with other things in my match today. Not thinking too far ahead of myself, especially the level I was playing at.”