THOSE who speak of the decline of Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer would do well to remember that only one year out of the last 12 have neither made it to the Wimbledon final.
The year in question was 2013, when a certain Andy Murray overcame Novak Djokovic to lift the title. The draw means that only one of this pair with 31 Grand Slam titles between them can make it back there this time around, but there was little evidence yesterday to suggest that either man isn't capable of going the distance.
As the No 10 seed this year, Nadal, of course, has further to travel, not least a projected quarter final against Murray. But those who expected him to be extended by Thomaz Bellucci, a talented Brazilian who has an ATP World ranking of 42, were sorely disappointed on Court No 1 yesterday lunchtime. His confidence bolstered by a clay court victory in Stuttgart a fortnight ago, Nadal already looks leaner and meaner than the version which rather tamely surrendered his clay court crown to Novak Djokovic in the Roland Garros quarter finals and this 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory was a fairly convincing opening to his Wimbledon campaign.
"I think I played okay, played well," said the Mallorcan. "I played solid. I was very good with my backhand today. With my forehand, it is always okay. But I think I can do it better. I can play more winners down the line than what I did today. I am a little bit more confident now than I was few months ago. It is just day by day for me. But obviously victories help."
As much momentum as seems to be building, the Spaniard now finds a rather sizeable obstacle standing in his path. Dustin Brown, the eccentric, big-serving Jamaican-German who awaits in the next round, actually has a winning record against the Mallorcan. Brown, who overcame Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei yesterday, was victorious in their only previous meeting, which came on a grass court, in Halle last year. The score, rather stunningly was 6-1, 6-4.
"It is difficult to think about how the match is going to be," said Nadal. "He's an unusual player. Anything can happen. It is little bit different, the surface and everything. So it is a dangerous match. He's a tough player. He won today against good opponent so probably he will come with good confidence. But I am going to try to be ready for it."
Apart from everything else, Brown is one of the quickest players on the tour when it comes to time between points. Nadal, with all that hair fixing and short picking, is of course one of the slowest.
"If he is quick, I don't need to be as quick as he is," said Nadal. "I have my seconds."
While the Wimbledon crowd showered him with the same affection as usual, these are strange times for Nadal simply by dint of his lowly world ranking. "I am No 10 because I deserve to be No 10," he said. "I am going to work hard to be higher."
Taking even less time to progress was Roger Federer, who took just one hour seven minutes to dispose of Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia, a player who he had also made light work of at Roland Garros. The 33-year-old, beaten finalist here last year, has won just one Grand Slam in the last five years but said he derived no motivation whatsoever from those people who continually write him off.
"I play for myself and my team, my fans, my country, you name it, rather than against the people who think and have come out and said things," said Federer. "It's part of the game really. But they don't drive me in any way whatsoever."
The Swiss, bidding to become the first man in history to win eight Wimbledon titles, said that part of his successes at SW19 these days are built upon staying in a house in the village. Mind you, it has to be big enough to accommodate his entire entourage, not to mention his wife Mirka and two sets of twins. The 33-year-old, who cannot meet either Nadal or Andy Murray until the semi-finals, said the only problem with the set-up was the amount of cleaning he had to do.
"I've done it now probably for 13, 14 years now," he said. "I used to stay in a bed and breakfast, or with a family, you know, just in one room. I had a flat, then a house. As the entourage grew and the family grew, we needed bigger. But the bigger it is, the more problems you have as well because you need to clean more and you need to do more things, so you need to get organized in a different way. But it's good fun. I think most of the players do it because we don't have to beat traffic every day."
Federer even felt moved to spare a thought for his young Bosnian opponent, whose day he had just ruined. "I'm sure in some crazy way he's also enjoying himself, can look back and say I played on Centre," he said. "Back in the day maybe I would not be as ruthless as today. But now it's trying to focus on what I need to do."
Other seeds in Murray's prospective path making progress were Andreas Seppi, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ivo Karlovic, and as gloom descended around the All England Club, Tomas Berdych was a 6-2, 6-7(10), 7-6 (7), 7-6 (7) winner against Jeremy Chardy.
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