Sharks Circling Federer

Slump Has Rivals Smelling Blood, but Swiss Isn't Panicking

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- Roger Federer strolled into the interview room Thursday as neatly tailored as ever, wearing crisp white trousers and a collared white shirt two days before his opening match Saturday at the Sony Ericsson Open. Near the back of the room his longtime girlfriend, Mirka Vavrinec, watched from behind large sunglasses as Federer glided to the dais in front of a roomful of reporters, breaking the silence with an amiable hello.

Everything, in short, seemed perfectly normal.

In Federer's world, things are normally perfect.

But the barrage of probing questions made it clear that things had changed. Federer, whose career supremacy resembles that of his pal Tiger Woods, has lost three times in his last three tournaments and, as American Andy Roddick put it, "there's like an uproar." Even Roddick, who has been endlessly schooled by Federer, refuses to believe the sport's king could emerge unscathed from his rough start -- however relative the roughness might be. "If you lose a couple matches in a row, that's going to affect you," Roddick said. "I don't care if you're Albert Einstein at the Intelligence Olympics."

Federer tried his best to insist nothing was amiss, handling the skeptical questions with the same unflappable coolness he has shown on the court in dominating tennis for four years and counting.

Of course, the question is: Is it four years and counting down?

"There's no need to second-guess or panic whatsoever," Federer, 26, said insistently. "I'm quite amazed at what the headlines are at the moment, to be honest."

Federer, hampered at the start of the year by mononucleosis, has not yet reached a tournament final (he once won 24 in a row) this season. In January, he lost in the semifinals of the Australian Open to No. 3-ranked Serb Novak Djokovic. After taking five weeks off to recover, he lost in the first round at a tournament in Dubai to Andy Murray. A week ago, he was toppled in the Pacific Life Open semifinals by Mardy Fish, who not only crushed him, 6-3, 6-2, but also ended his 41-match winning streak over Americans.

It was that loss, in a tournament that began with an assertive first-round victory and Federer's declaration that he was back to full health, that stunned many in the world of tennis. The Australian Open defeat was understandable; the loss at Dubai, a reasonable blip. But the pounding from Fish, who lost in the first round here, at Indian Wells?

Federer's puzzling play, along with the recent rise of a handful of young players, suggests that he might be vulnerable for the first time in years. As this tournament got underway this week, it was Djokovic, 20, the Australian Open and Pacific Life Open champion, who had earned the distinction of being the hottest player in men's tennis.

Djokovic, known for his hilarious impersonations of fellow players, called himself a "good clown" Thursday, but he also made clear that he is serious about unseating Federer. He said he hopes to move up in the rankings soon.

Meantime, Federer's clay-court nemesis Rafael Nadal, the world's No. 2 ranked man, recently closed to within 350 ranking points of Federer. That margin, which has since expanded in tennis's rolling ranking system, was the smallest by which Federer occupied the top spot in nearly four years.