Rafael Nadal struck a blow for Wimbledon’s old guard as he powered through to the second week with a Centre Court beasting of one of the brightest young players in the game.
Twenty-one-year-old Russian Karen Khachanov felt the full force of Nadal for almost an hour before joining the battle too late, as Spain’s two-time champion sealed a 6-1 6-4 7-6 (7/3) third-round victory.
Watched from the Royal Box by his compatriot and friend, the green-jacketed Masters champion Sergio Garcia, Nadal showed why he has won 15 tennis majors in his time and might add another a week on Sunday.
And before Nadal closed out victory there was the opportunity for the crowd to witness the rich promise of Khachanov.
He grew into the match and his time will come, but for now the likes of Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are holding firm at the top.
“For a set and a half I was playing fantastic, and then a little bit worse. But in general terms I’m very happy,” Nadal said.
Real Madrid fan Nadal was playing to an audience that included former Bernabeu star David Beckham.
Nadal, 31, sprung from the traps like the prize greyhounds that used to race in this south-west London district, before the legs began to tire and inevitably some of the early fizz went flat.
Some might have considered Murray’s clash with Fabio Fognini the main event on Wimbledon’s biggest stage on Friday. But Nadal belongs on the undercard to nobody and he showed why in a 22-minute first set.
If the Augusta National greens on which Garcia triumphed so memorably ever deteriorated to the degree that Wimbledon’s baselines have burned away under the sun, the greenskeeper would surely be out on his ear, but Nadal seemed untroubled by their baked state.
Nobody slips and slides with more control than the 10-time French Open, so if that becomes a factor it plays in his favour. And nobody cracks a forehand with quite the ferocity that Nadal loads behind the ball.
One such shot, blistering and across court, came in the fourth game and must have terrified Khachanov.
This was the young Russian’s first experience of playing Nadal, and it was to his credit that he fought back purposefully, sparked by a sequence of four straight aces to win the fifth game of the second set.
Nadal even had to save a set point when trailing 6-5 in the third, but he retrieved the situation with a delicious drop-shot winner that showed his game was still there in case of such emergencies. Two thrilling passing shots fizzed past Khachanov in the tie-break, and the match was done when Khachanov obligingly hooked a service return long.
