NEW YORK -- By late May, Roger Federer was well on his way to challenging Lleyton Hewitt for men's tennis supremacy. The Swiss Mister opened the year by reaching finals at Sydney, Milan and Miami, beating the world's No. 1 in the semis in South Florida.

Then in Hamburg, the man with the game's most fluid strokes, broke through for his first tourney win of the year as well as his first Tennis Masters Series title, in a straight-set victory over good friend Marat Safin on a surface (clay) that's not exactly his best. Predicted by many to challenge for the title in Paris, Federer rolled into Roland Garros at No. 2 in the points race.

How then did Federer go from a career-high No. 8 ranking to an opening match on Court 10 of the U.S. Open as the 13th seed? The answer, of course, isn't simple. In the past three months, a lot has changed for the mellow kid who on court resembles Quentin Tarantino ... on valium. As you certainly know by now, Federer did not win the French. In fact, he was a first round casualty at both Roland Garros (to Hicham Arazi) and at Wimbledon (to Mario Ancic in Ancic's first career Grand Slam match). And that was just the beginning. When the hard court tour picked up in the States, Federer lost first round matches in Toronto, Cincinnati and Long Island. The series of setbacks was exacerbated when Federer's former coach and then-Swiss Davis Cup captain, Peter Carter, was killed in a car accident in South Africa in August.

Thus, Federer arrived in New York with the feeling that his entire year would be lost should he bow out early here. "I'm not here to play golf," he said prior to the tournament's start. Federer's struggle is one of the tour's biggest enigmas when you consider the size of his talent. He has the ability to make difficult shots look easy and no one has smoother groundies.

"He hits from the baseline like Agassi and he has the hands of Sampras," says Meghann Shaughnessy's coach Rafael Font de Mora. Still, following his first round, four-set win over Jiri Vanek, Federer talked about how he just doesn't feel right on the court.

"My footwork is not right like it used to be because the confidence is missing," he said. "When you're confident, you don't think about footwork."

Federer found a chance to get back some confidence in his second round match against Michael Chang and he brought out the full arsenal. Federer, 21, had an answer for everything Chang threw at him. Federer's series of aces (11), lobs, drop volleys and passing shots mixed with a couple of incredible overhead backhand volleys that had Chang talking to himself.

"With Michael, you're always getting into the rally because his second serve is not very good," Federer said. "For me, it's very convenient because I can either chip and charge or play deep and get into the point. I don't put pressure on myself to hit the winner right away. I know if he attacks me it's not so dangerous."

Federer's hour and a half, straight set victory once again showed why he is perhaps the game's best shot maker. Yet, the real problem for Federer might not be confidence but fire, or lack thereof. The king of the slow motion fist pump, Federer rarely shows much emotion on the court. "I used to show more," he says. "But lately there was not much I could show because I was losing. I don't want to just smash racquets. I have a good racquet, you know. It's myself, my head, which was not working."

With all the talk of parity on the men's side (over 30 different men have captured trophies this year alone), it's interesting to note that the man whose head is together, Hewitt, stands alone as the tour's top player. Simply put, the scrappy Australian always plays with emotion and intensity, and he just refuses to lose. In just his third full season, Federer has shown he has the game to challenge the Australian for the men's top spot. But the man who idolizes Sampras and ironically ended Pete's streak at Wimbledon in 2001, needs to stop impersonating his hero.

Taking something from these three months of failure and personal loss, Federer is showing signs of breaking out of his slump. He knows there is a time and place for everything. And as he progresses through the field here in Flushing, there's even a chance we might soon witness a fully energized Federer. "When it's going to be a full stadium," he says. "I will show more emotions."

John Gustafson is a staff writer for ESPN The Magazine.