After victories last night, both Roger Federer and Andy Murray were asked to give the media their thoughts on the form of Rafael Nadal. The Spaniard fell in round of 16 action to Feliciano Lopez, putting a cloud over his U.S. Open hopes and putting the kibosh on a highly anticipated 34th meeting between Federer and Nadal, but Federer and Murray both believe that Nadal is progressing even if he isn’t seeing the results to prove it just yet.

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Each spoke at length when asked about Nadal by Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times. We’ll cut to the chase and give you most of what they said below.

Roger Federer:

“Yeah, it's been tougher. Didn't see him play that much, to be quite honest, just because I don't follow every step he takes. Like all the other players, I see them if they play around me in the draw. Otherwise, if it happens that he plays at the right time I will watch it, clearly.

“But then I think why it shines through more that it's been a tough year for him is just because the clay court season—well, he didn't win the French for the second time in 10 years. It's like a drama to some. For me it's somewhat normal that you don't win 10 of 10. But he's done so unbelievably well in the clay. Like you said, he set the bar so high for everybody. Clearly can't always live up to it.

“He's come back so strong from injuries so many times that we are used to seeing him bounce back and seeing the top 2, top 3 at least. When he comes back this time it's just not been that easy. I think it's going to take a little bit more time, but I think he's inching closer to where he wants to be. This always has been a tough stretch for him in the past. Even though this is the tournament maybe you wouldn't favor him as much, but he's that great of a champion it could happen any week. It's a good thing if you're Rafa and you know that.

“I mean, he's missing, what, four months playing in the tournaments, whatever it counts for his ranking. So other players have an extra 10 tournaments on him. That's why his ranking is down. But would he have played all of last season normally from, I don't know, Wimbledon all the way through to the World Tour Finals, it would have been different story. The ranking in that case doesn't tell the story."

“I think the standards that someone like Rafa has set, like when they don't meet them, yeah, people are obviously very surprised. I mean, the consistency he's had over the years has made him, Roger and Rafa, it has been ridiculous. It's something that I don't think we will be seeing probably for quite a long time when they are done.

“You know, Rafa has obviously—I think he's been fairly healthy this year, but end of last year he didn't play lots of matches. He often talks like he's a player that needs matches to feel confident and comfortable, and he's obviously just lost a few close matches this year. Obviously the one tonight [his loss in a third-set tiebreaker vs. Feliciano Lopez in Cincinnati], I didn't see it, but that's a match that you would normally expect him to maybe normally sneak out in the third set or in the third set tiebreak. When the confidence isn't quite there, then you can lose those matches. But, yeah, I still think that he'll come back and then start playing close to his best tennis again soon."