Blake lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero, which is surprising and troubling. Federer lost to Andy Murray. That was shocking but not particularly troubling.

Roger Federer and James Blake must have had breakfast at the Waffle House this morning. They were both flat as a pancake in their matches at Cincinnati today. Blake lost to Juan Carlos Ferrero, which is surprising and troubling. Federer lost to Andy Murray. That was shocking but not particularly troubling.

I’d like to tell you that the Murray-Federer match had scintillating play and gave us fascinating insight on how to beat the unbeatable but it wasn’t and it didn’t. It told you how to play Federer when Federer was off, so completely off I wondered if maybe his girlfriend had told him she was leaving him this morning or something equally desperate. That’s useful if you happen to play him the one time every two years that happens – the 2004 Olympics was the last time he went out in the second round. Today was that day and Murray was ready.

If you looked at Murray’s statistics in the first set, you’d think Murray was the one in trouble. His first serve percentage was an abysmal 34% and he lost his serve three times. But Federer’s serve percentage was also under 50% and he lost his serve four times, twice on double faults. Balls were twanging off the frame of his racket and going long.

Worse than that, except for an extremely unusual show of temper, Federer rocketed a ball out of the stadium and got a ball abuse warning for it, Federer was subdued for most of the match. He had no fire.

Set two was another breakathon. Federer was broken three times and Murray twice which means that Federer held serve a grand total of four times in two sets.

So how do you beat Federer on one of his exceptionally rare off days? You stay within yourself and play your game. Easier said than done. One of the biggest reasons players lose important matches is the “Alex Rodriguez Syndrome.” So called because Rodriguez puts too much pressure on himself and doesn’t produce in the playoffs.

Here is an example. When Murray was asked if he had a chance to beat Federer he said: “I’m gonna have to play the best match of my life to have a chance of winning.” That’s what gets you into trouble. If you put pressure on yourself to play the best you’ve ever played, you end up playing worse than usual.

To Murray’s credit, he didn’t try to play a perfect game. When Federer pulled him wide, Murray was satisfied to get the ball back into play; when Federer hit a short shot, Murray hit a good slice approach and anticipated well at the net. Basic, solid tennis.

Credit Brad Gilbert. Is that guy magic or what? Murray is 10-2 under his tutelage. Murray was lucky to find Federer on a bad day but 10-2 is no accident. Gilbert has to learn to keep his mouth shut a bit more. Murray complained out loud during the match about Gilbert’s worried looks whenever Murray hit a bad shot on an important point and Gilbert is not supposed to signal Murray when to challenge a call or not. But if Murray is smart, he’ll ride Gilbert all the way to a few slam wins.

The entire match was so quiet, Federer was submissive and Murray was his usual hangdog self, that I wondered if maybe I’d been hanging out in a parallel universe for a few hours and Federer had actually won the match. I found it so hard to believe that he’d actually lost. I left the room and returned to make sure I wasn’t seeing things and, yes, it was true, the score was still 7-5, 6-4 for Murray and Federer’s streak of seventeen consecutive finals was broken.

Blake isn’t the bigger story here but he’s the one I worry about. He completely tanked the last two sets to Max Mirnyi at Wimbledon and today he went down tamely. His ground strokes weren’t working and he failed to get a break point on Ferrero. Players expect bad days but Blake seems to disappear in matches at times. If he doesn’t do well at New Haven next week, a tournament he won last year, the US Open might be another early exit for Blake.

As for Federer, this is a blip on the screen. My money is still on him for the US Open.

You can read about Federer’s last loss on hard court here.