A Lesson in Adjusting to Lower Expectations Lleyton Hewitt, 32, a former No. 1, during his five-set loss to Mikhail Youzhny in the fourth round Tuesday. The assumption is that Roger Federer will not be happy playing tennis unless he plays like the Federer in our mind's eye: smoothly gobbling up court space and whipping airborne forehands into the corners with his hair and aura still neatly in place and another Grand Slam trophy within elegant reach. But there is, of course, another path, and it was on display on Tuesday as Lleyton Hewitt traded jabs and the occasional roundhouse punch with Mikhail Youzhny. They were playing at the same Louis Armstrong Stadium where Federer had crashed out of the United States Open in straight sets the night before against Tommy Robredo, one of his many long-term foils. The humidity and the attendance had dropped for this fourth-round match, with most of the stadium's top tier remaining empty in the sunshine. But there was still a crackling intensity to Hewitt and Youzhny's extended rallies, which were full of the variety and resourcefulness on and off the stretch that still make tennis worth our time in a wired world of so many diversions. Even with Federer gone, his generation was still on the scene, and the 31-year-old Youzhny ended up the winner, 6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 7-5, to earn a quarterfinal date with Novak Djokovic that looks rather like a booby prize given Djokovic's present state of mind and game. Hewitt, who served for the match at 5-3 in the fifth set, will have to take solace in his second-round upset of Juan Martín del Potro and his ability to still pose a threat. "It's obviously disappointing to lose, but, you know, I left it all out there," said Hewitt, his face still flush from the sun and the effort. There's not a whole heap more I could have done. Hewitt, like Federer, is 32 and was once No. 1 in the world; was once the planet around which the tennis moons orbited. But the intense Australian has moved on from those increasingly distant days and found meaning at a new, lower level. Public expectations have adjusted with Hewitt's own, which is not yet the case with Federer. Though it is quite difficult at the moment to imagine a day when the sport might view Federer losing in the fourth round of a major tournament as a solid result, the expectation game can shift quickly. What is already clear is that Federer, now ranked seventh and in the midst of his least convincing season in a decade, has downshifted into a genuine underdog's role, with Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray occupying higher ground. Now it is a question of whether he can or truly wants to adjust to that status. Now it is time to find out truly how much he loves the game when he is not dominating the game. "Personally, I pray that he keeps playing for two more years," said Mats Wilander, another former No. I'd love to see him struggle and talk about it, because then we can learn something from that. I can't learn anything from what Roger Federer did in the middle of the 2000s. Nor can he. I think it brings you back down to earth and then suddenly you become part of the human race again, because when you are No. 1 in the world, it's hard not to feel the world revolves around you. But if you fight through the whole thing, have the ups and downs, you come down to earth and you realize you were so fortunate winning so much and now you are just happy to be part of history and really feel how much you love the sport. I think if you step away at the wrong time, you sort of create this false bubble. Wilander reached No. 1 in 1988, winning three of the four Grand Slam singles titles, and then played on with fluctuating appetite, some extended breaks and diminished results until 1996. But those later years also had value for him, even if he only reached one more Grand Slam singles semifinal. It wasn't hard for me to not be No. 1, because I didn't have the same motivation to do that," Wilander said. I came back to play tennis because I missed it. I didn't come back to get to No. 1 or win a Grand Slam. I got back to 41 in the world, made a couple of finals, made the semis of the Canadian Open, beat a couple of top-10 guys. One day I lost, 8-6, in the fifth to Wayne Ferreira at the French Open and then went out and won a doubles match, 14-12, in the final set. That was eight hours on the court for me, and I won the last point. You play tennis for different reasons, and that was my final at that stage. Just as I think Lleyton Hewitt's final was his match here against del Potro. Today, he choked. Harsh though it sounds, there were plenty of signs Tuesday: double faults at pressure-filled moments, lost leads in the fourth and fifth sets. But there was also plenty of Youzhny in it: one-handed backhand winners from positions of apparent weakness, a ridiculous forehand volley crosscourt winner in extension with both men at the net and Hewitt in control of the point while serving for the match. It was the sort of something-out-of-nothing legerdemain that Federer has trademarked during his eye-catching years at the top. But as this season keeps reminding us, the game will go on without him. That does not mean, however, that he needs to be in any rush to say goodbye.