Facing the blazing, brilliant groundstrokes of Rafael Nadal is hard enough, let alone having to cope with his grunting and serial tendency to take excessive times between points.
Roger Federer did not blame his Australian Open semi-final defeat against the Spaniard on the latter two irritations, but is clearly losing patience with the leniency being shown to the world No 1 in those two areas.
The great Swiss twice complained in the second set about Nadal's grunting to umpire Jake Garner who, like most of his colleagues do, let it all go during a 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-3 victory that has put him within touching distance of making more history.
Only Federer's compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka can now stop him from becoming the first player in modern times to win each Grand Slam twice, and with a 0-12 career record it is difficult to see that happening.
The seven-times Wimbledon champion took exception to varied levels of grunting from the other side of the net and, as usual, was constantly kept waiting between points as Nadal continually went way past the theoretical 20-second limit.
Asked later whether he was distracted by the grunting he replied: 'Not when he does it every point, but it goes in phases, one point he does and one point he doesn't, that's what I was complaining about.'
On the matter of time between points, a running sore in the whole sport which authorities are desperately weak and inconsistent on, he gave a measured response.
'Rafa is doing a much better job than he used to, I'm not complaining much about the time but I think I've played him 33 times and he's got two points penalties over the course of our rivalry,' he said.
'You either have rules or you don't. If you don't have rules it's fine, everybody can do what they want to do. It's important to enforce the rules on all levels, don't give me or Djokovic a free pass because of who we are.
'We should all be judged the same way, not just a guy on court 16, who you can give a time violation to just because you can. On Centre Court they're always going to be afraid, the umpires, to take those decisions. I don't want to go into the (tournament) office and complain all the time, I never do. I just hope they do their job correctly. Sometimes you've just go to say things.'
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