NEW YORK — Because there’s no clock in tennis, we often forget about the tyranny of time. Last night at the U.S. Open, we got a sharp reminder. In stifling humidity—the U.S. Open turned U.S. Oven—Roger Federer, at age 37, melted away, falling to an athletic Australian, John Millman, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6, 7-6, in the fourth round.
This marked Federer’s earliest U.S. Open defeat in a half-decade. It thwarted his bid to win this event for a record sixth time. It precluded the much-anticipated (if not outright assumed) dream quarterfinal against Novak Djokovic. It foreclosed the possibility of the first Federer-Nadal match at the U.