He’s 38 but Roger Federer maintains more grand slam chances await despite confessing to a “missed opportunity” after blowing a two-sets-to-one advantage in a shock US Open quarter-final defeat.

Clearly hindered, a gracious Federer refused to blame a back issue for his 3-6 6-4 3-6 6-4 6-2 collapse against Grigor Dimitrov, a rival he’d not lost to in seven previous meetings.

“Physically, yeah, I felt it the whole time. That’s it. I was able to play with it. My bad not to win,” said Federer, who all but surrendered while dropping four games to fall behind 4-0 in the deciding set immediately after requiring a medical timeout.

But while Federer seemed to go through the motions in the fifth set, he never considered stopping for the first time in his 1494-match career, despite feeling uncomfortable during his warm-up on Tuesday afternoon.

Federer, though, vowed, to continue fighting to add to his record haul of 20 grand slam men’s singles titles.

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