Athens Olympics, 2004
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This tournament was certainly a huge disappointment for Federer and his fans.
Having won the Australian Open and the Wimbledon that year, he participated in the tournament as the number one seed.
Therefore, he was expected to go all the distance in the tournament. No one expected him to crash out in early stages of the tournament, but Federer suffered a surprising, disheartening and embarrassing loss in the second round.
Federer would lose to Czech Tomas Berdych, who was ranked 74th at the time, in a three-set loss.
He took the first set 6-4, but lost the next two sets 5-7, 5-7, and eventually the match. In fact, he had a shaky start to the tournament when his first round match against the Russian Nikolay Davydenko stretched to three sets.
He also said that he gave his 100% but simply that day did not belong to him. After his loss, he later admitted that he never felt comfortable with the conditions in Athens.
Federer took positives from the tournament and went on to win the next Grand Slam of the year, the U.S Open. He finished the year with three Grand Slam titles and ranked number one.
He became the first player since Sweden’s Mats Wilander in 1988 to win three of the four major tournaments in a calendar year.
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