SABR | The Sneak Attack that SAVED Roger Federer's Career

It started as a joke. It ended up redefining Roger Federer's entire career.

Initially hated by many with multiples more left bewildered, the rarely before seen blitz marked the culmination of Federer’s years of experience and experimentation in crafting a move which may have contributed to one of the best late-career athletic comebacks of all time. But while extremely flashy and undoubtedly impressive when executed, do the statistics actually validate SABR’s usefulness in a professional level match? How effective really was it?

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Video written by Vikram Nijhawan

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[Daiton]

2017 Federer during his AO title and Sunshine double wins has to be one of the best displays of attacking tennis in the modern era. His backhand looked unstoppable, he was consistently taking the ball so early and immediately put his opponent on the backfoot and the SABR was the perfect shot that exemplified all of that.

[seangates]

I never heard Roger claiming to invent the shot, therefore why does it matter? It rejuvenated his backhand, and his career. End of story, Nothing Becker said matters here.

[Guergeiro]

Roger is just the beauty of tennis. I watched not because of wins, but because the magic he produced on set.

[brandonm]

Great example of some brilliant coaching.
Interestingly, that 2015 Cincy match against Djokovic is the 4th lowest return points won % in Djokovic's career. Of the 3 other matches, one was in 2007 and the other two were just before his elbow surgery in 2017. What this means is that Federer's clinical serving was significant in how Federer won that match and tournament. Djokovic and Murray definitely sussed out the SABR quicker than others, and I think Murray should also get credit for stepping in significantly on the second serve before Federer dubbed it the SABR

[RainWasTaken]

I went to the 2015 Western & Southern Open with my dad and watched the final of Federer vs. Djokovic. I firmly remember looking at my dad after I saw the SABR and saying “is that allowed?”

[WivoRN]

Missed your videos so much my man!

Fascinating stuff as always and welcome back! ❤️

[ermishatziantoniou]

The reason Becker hated the SABR was because it was first implemented on a match against him by Mansour Bahrami on clay in Hamburg 1988 . So the inventor question is finished .

[benjaminrosen]

Can you talk about why the Wimbledon courts were slowed down so significantly? Would be an interesting video

[kierankelleher]

Brilliant. The quality of these video essay edits is out of this world. Great to see a new one - amazing as ever all round.

[daspacepope]

I'm always in awe at the quality of these videos.

[tds]

SABR really is the serve and volley of returning.

[nikc]

Love to see you back! I was just rewatching vids this week.

[bradberkely]

I remember doing this sort of thing in highschool a lot! I was on doubles and my return of serves were not working for me at all that season (hitting a lot of weak shots or them going out) so I just decided to be really aggressive and just get the ball in. This really helped out a lot and as a doubles team we got pretty far into the state championship!

[hughoutwater]

Bro your editing skills have gotten so good the visuals on this were so cool 🙌

[andre-pxrv]

I literally only got nebula for this channel. Post more tho we love the content bro. I’m these take time but I’m sure you can dish out even 1 a month. Keep up the work .

[Frank_Lee_Terrible]

6:15 having 33% points won is actually pretty good since it's on the return

[mrclean]

Didn’t know you were on nebula! I’ll check it out now:)

[TheFuzzyman]

Thank you for your content! Top notch as always! ❤❤❤

[enigma]

The Fed bh in 2017 was one of the deadliest shots ever.

[Michael-Boyer]

Great vid. But seems like a lot speculation. The Sabr maybe helped Fed win 2015 Cincy, though I think he still wins without it but not the 2015 USO. 33% is bad, though maybe it induced more errors from his opps on other points. But he’s only doing it on 2nd serves and maybe half a dozen times at most. But, he didn’t win another GS until 2017 AO. I think his more carefree attitude coming back from his first big injury was the biggest reason he won the 2017 AO.