It was business as usual for Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal on Manic Monday at Wimbledon as tennis’ Big 3 marched through to the quarter-finals with breezy straight-set victories.
Nadal rolled past Portugal’s Joao Sousa, 6-2 6-2 6-2, while Djokovic barreled past France’s Ugo Humbert 6-3 6-2 6-3.
Federer rolled past Italian upstart Matteo Berrettini 6-1 6-2 6-2.
Just like most predicted…
It’s been the theme of this year’s Championships on the men’s side. There’s the BIG 3 a cut above, then there’s everybody else, playing at seemingly a level or two below.
And where it stops nobody knows.
It seems near impossible that one of the Big 3 won’t win Wimbledon, but the big questions are:
Can anybody step in the way of a Federer-Nadal semi-final at Wimbledon?
Which one of the three will eventually prevail and hoist the trophy on Sunday?
When asked by a reporter on Monday what message the Big 3 was trying to send to the other members of the field with such uncanny repeated excellence, Nadal said: there is no message.
“Personally, I am not thinking about sending a message to no one or about the next generation, how they are coming or not,” he said. “I know they're good. I know there is going to be a day that they are going to be in front of us because they will play better than us or because we are leaving, we are not kids any more. That's all.
“That's the thing, of course, is special what we achieved in the last 15 years. Something special, difficult to repeat I think, so many titles between three players. But sometimes these kind of things happens.”
Djokovic, who took out Wimbledon debutant Ugo Humbert to improve to 70-10 lifetime and increase his Wimbledon winning streak to 12, says that experience helps.
“I think we are working as hard as anybody really to be there,” he said. “I think the experience we have helps confidence, everything that we have achieved in our careers obviously we carry onto the court, then most of the players feel that, feel pressure.
“For us it's another match on the center stage that we've experienced so many times. I think that's one of the reasons why we, I guess, feel comfortable being there and managing to play our best consistently.”
In total the trio dropped just 18 games between the three of them on Manic Monday, and while their challenges should get more difficult in the next round, when Nadal faces hard-serving Sam Querrey, Djokovic faces surging David Goffin and Federer faces Kei Nishikori, it’s hard to predict anything other than win, win, win.
Many fans are getting uncomfortable with the length of the reign, but Djokovic can't be concerned. At one point he was the wolf, chasing Federer and Nadal to the highest heights of tennis. These days he’s at the top with them, and he likes the view.
“The fact we're still making history of the game. It does transcend, I feel like, and hopefully does,” he said. “It's like Tom Brady, for example, who at his age is still playing on the top level, winning rings and everything. LeBron James, Serena. It's wonderful to be part of something that transcends the sport itself. That also carries a lot of, I think, responsibility. You try to carry yourself in a right manner.”