The 36-year-old admitted that his rivals had been occupying a whole lot of area in his thoughts however did not need to write off their achievements regardless of surpassing them. He continued: "Countless hours of thinking and analyzing and what it takes to win against them on the biggest stage, you know, for me and my team, it was just those two guys were occupying my mind for the last 15 years quite a lot. In a professional sense.

"So it is wonderful to know that I'm one forward of each of them in Grand Slams, with Rafa, however on the identical time, everybody writes their very own historical past. So, you already know, I nonetheless assume that everybody has a singular journey that they need to embrace and follow.

"But of course having the three of us, with Andy of course, as well, that we cannot forget, in the last 20 years, it's kind of reached the golden era of the men's tennis, as people like to call it. So I'm really grateful to be part of this group of guys."