The 20-time Grand Slam champion gave an interview this week where he claimed he had been struggling with a hand injury since Wimbledon.
It goes a long way to explaining shock defeats to Kevin Anderson, at SW19, and the loss to John Millman at the US Open.
However, tennis pundit Catherine Whitaker believes Federer could be wrong for coming out with the excuse – because it takes the gloss of the win for his rivals.
“A Swiss journalist has had some time with Roger Federer this week – they talked about all sorts of things,” Whitaker told the Tennis Podcast.
“Federer told him that he had a hand injury, he injured his hand before Wimbledon and that was affecting him for a three-month period afterwards, including during the defeat to Kevin Anderson.
“A lot of people are pointing out this isn’t the first time that after the fact, Federer has said ‘oh actually, I was a little bit injured’.
“Given how much time, rightly I believe, we spend singing Federer’s praises because he’s marvellous, should we just highlight the fact that technically it’s all sort of against the sporting code?”
Fellow pundit David Law admitted he too was ‘not keen’ on what Federer said.
“It’s one of those. We want players to be honest but we rip them if they are not,” he said.
“He made quite a big thing of the fact he came into the US Open this year and this time he was fit and ready to go whereas last year he wasn’t. This is the first we’ve heard of it really.
“I’m not too keen on it but I have to say at the same time, it kind of would add up a bit.
“His forehand was all over the place. Against Kevin Anderson at Wimbledon and various other places, he couldn’t put it into the court.”
Federer is in action at the Swiss Indoors this week where he was made to work hard for his first-round win over unseeded Serbian Filip Krajinovic in Basel.
Eight-time winner Federer, back in his hometown, won through to the last 16 with a 6-2 4-6 6-4 victory against world number 35 Krajinovic.
Top seed Federer, 37, who won the tournament last year, appeared rusty in his first appearance since his semi-final defeat to Borna Coric at the Shanghai Masters earlier this month, but won through in two hours and nine minutes.
He takes on Jan-Lennard Struff on Thursday night.