But the thread running through both setbacks was the great Wimbledon final in July. It was the match of the year and one of the matches of this golden era: a grass-court test of concentration that bordered on meditative before developing into a thriller as Djokovic saved — or Federer blew — two match points, and Djokovic then prevailed in a newfangled fifth-set tiebreaker at 12 games all.

But there will be no rematch in New York, which now has a tough act to follow without the same cast.

Sustaining excellence and health through an entire tennis season remains quite a challenge, and though Federer is now 38 and playing for gravy, the reality is that he has fallen short in New York for more than a decade now.

Clay might be his weakest surface, but he won his lone French Open title more recently (in 2009) than he won the United States Open, where all five of his victories came from 2004 to 2008.

He has reached two finals here since then: losing in five sets to Juan Martín del Potro in 2009 and in four sets to Djokovic in 2015, which was another occasion when the Ashe Stadium crowd got nasty with Djokovic.