Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both won their third-round matches on Saturday at the US Open, taking another step toward a potential semifinal showdown next week.
The two tennis legends who have combined to win 34 Grand Slam singles titles have met multiple times at every Slam but have never faced one another at the year’s final major in New York.
“I going to be very honest, I don’t think about that,” top-seeded Nadal said after his 6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Leonardo Mayer of Argentina in 3 hours, 15 minutes. “I just think about my next match. I just think about try to play well. Don’t think about who is there, who is not there.”
In the fourth round on Monday, Nadal will face Alexandr Dolgopolov, against whom he is 6-2.
“I lost with him in Indian Wells couple of years ago,” Nadal said. “I played with him this year in Brisbane. I know I have to play well. He going to play aggressive. He has the ability to hit the ball very quick and to take the ball very early. So if I am not playing aggressive, I not playing long, if I let him play from a good positions, then going to be very, very difficult.”
Nadal’s match was the last of the day session, but extended well into the night session because of the combined length of the three day matches. The night crowd of some 23,000 waited outside in the rain for a couple of hours, watching Nadal’s match on the big screen TVs on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Slated to begin at 7 p.m., Federer did not start his match against No. 31 Feliciano Lopez until after 9:30. Still, unlike his previous two five-set encounters with Frances Tiafoe and Mikhail Youzhny, Federer was highly efficient, moved well and served effectively en route to a 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory in 1 hour, 46 minutes.
Federer improved to 13-0 against Lopez after moving to 17-0 against Youzhny. Next up is Phillipp Kohlschreiber, against whom Federer is 11-0.
Federer, the five-time US Open champ, broke the Spaniard once each in the first two sets to take a two sets-to-love lead. He looked crisper and moved better than he did in his opening-night struggle against the 19-year-old Tiafoe or in his topsy-turvy five-set encounter with a hobbled 35-year-old Youzhny on Thursday.
He closed it out when Lopez sprayed a forehand into the net, causing Federer to pump his fists and shout out. It was his first straight-sets victory of the tournament.
“I struggled the first couple of rounds, but I think that had something also to do with my opponents,” he said on-court. “They came out and played very well and once I had a slow start, once my opponent fought back really hard. And today it almost happened again in the third set, but I played a very clean match.
“I couldn’t be happier, get a match in straight sets.”
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