Former World No.1 Roger Federer was making no excuses for his tough four-set loss to Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the Australian Open on Thursday night.
Federer won the opening set against Nadal, but couldn't maintain the momentum as his Spanish opponent moved through to the Melbourne Park decider in devastating style.
It was Federer's eighth loss to Nadal at Grand Slam level, but the 16-time major winner was happy with how he played and said his opponent was just too good.
"I thought Rafa played well from start to finish," Federer said after the loss.
"I started really well myself, but Rafa did well to hang in there."
"I was slightly disappointed leaving centre court because I felt like my game was good and I could have done something in the finals potentially."
"But I don't have to worry about that now anymore."
"It's fine. It's in the past already."
In an attempt to push Nadal around the court, Federer went for a lot more power in some of his groundstrokes during the contest and made an uncharacteristic high amount of unforced errors.
Federer's unforced error count of 63 was the highest in any of his games at Melbourne Park this year, with 36 of those somewhat surprisingly coming on the forehand side.
But Federer insisted he was forced into a lot of those errors as he knew Nadal would run down most of his groundstrokes, unless he opted for extra power.
"I'm always going to miss forehands because I have to go after the ball," he said.
"If I just put it into play he'll smack it, so it's pretty simple."
"I have to keep driving it, and obviously at times I clipped the tape a bit too often."
"But I hit flatter than Rafa so it's always going to happen."
Federer has now made just one final in his past eight Grand Slam appearances, but the 30-year-old remains confident he still has plenty to offer in the coming years.
"Obviously I would have loved to have come through and gotten a crack at winning the title here again," Federer said.
"Important is the reaction from now."
"Where do I go from here?"
"It was a tough match physically, but it's only the beginning of the season."