Frenchman Gilles Simon believed he had almost the entire locker-room behind him as he attempted his stunning take down of Novak Djokovic with a valiant tactical threat to the world No.1's march to Australian Open destiny.
In a fascinating interview before Sunday's match at Rod Laver Arena, Simon claimed that the vast majority of players at Melbourne Park were behind him in his quest to dethrone the king of world tennis, revealing there was a growing feeling within the locker-room that Djokovic's dominant reign had become "boring".
"The players are getting tired of it ... It's a bit humiliating," Simon said, insisting that such a sentiment was nothing personal towards Djokovic, at least from him.
"It's not that Novak became arrogant, but on Sunday there will be many people rooting for me in the locker room. Almost everybody." 
If indeed that was the case, then Simon gave those crusading against the 10-time grand slam champion something to be encouraged by, showing the world that the Serbian Superman was in fact mortal - if not plain average at times - by becoming the first player to take a set off Djokovic in 2016 during a four-hour (and counting) grind the likes of which Djokovic has rarely had to endure.
At the very least, Simon was poised to score something of a "moral" victory, or a locker room victory for "morale", by dragging out Djokovic's worst tennis in a grand slam for many years, as the match went down to the wire after Simon won the second set in a tie-breaker and then grabbed the fourth set to shock the five-time Australian Open champion.
Simon had only beaten Djokovic in one of their 10 previous encounters, however the No.14 seed was in the midst of giving the world's best player an almighty scare, and maybe pulling off one of the biggest upsets for a long time. Djokovic faced a scoreline of 6-3, 6-7 (1-7), 6-4, 4-6 when Fairfax Media went to print on Sunday night.
Simon's pre-match "boring" comments were fitting, as he would go on to implement a plan designed essentially to "bore" Djokovic, constantly hitting ground strokes into the middle of the court - at varying, slower paces - and daring Djokovic to force winners.
As one of the greatest defensive players in tennis history was forced to play predominantly "offence" for much of the match, the result was a staggering number of unforced errors off the racquet of Djokovic - 87 in the first four sets, and many of them uncharacteristically sloppy from the back-hand side, and countless poorly played drop shots.
As the match went on, the tournament favourite grew increasingly frustrated - visibly and audibly so - with his declining standard of play as well as his inability to convert break points, as for a period during the second and third sets he converted only one from 15 tries.
To make matters worse, Simon would unpredictably spring out of his passive, "winning ugly" style to produce blistering passing shots at key moments and even outplay his more celebrated opponent in many of the long, crowd-pleasing rallies.
The dent in Djokovic's invincibility came as a timely jolt for the event and - should he advance to the quarter-final - also for his quarter-final opponent, Japanese star Kei Nishikori, who shook off injury concerns on Sunday to produce his best tennis of the tournament in a straight sets win over Frenchman Jo Wilfried Tsonga at Hisense Arena.
Yet even though he was convincingly beaten by Nishikori - 4-6, 2-6, 4-6 in just two hours - Tsonga said he did not feel the diminutive but lightning-quick No.7 seed could beat Djokovic, if that match-up occurred.
"Technically, tactically, mentally, he's better than everybody," Tsonga said about Djokovic.
"There's nothing else to say."
Still, Nishikori is one of the few players over the past 18 months to have proved that Djokovic is beatable in grand slams, having notched a "career" win over the superstar in the semi-finals of the 2014 US Open.
The 25-year-old defeated Djokovic in four sets to become the first Asian male tennis player to contest a grand slam final - and although he lost to Marin Cilic in the title match - it was an achievement that made him one of the most popular sporting figures in his country, lifting his image onto billboards in Japan and, this month, even Time magazine.
DAY 7 RESULTS
MEN'S SINGLES, ROUND 4
7-Kei Nishikori (Jpn) d 9-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Fra) 6-4 6-2 6-4.
WOMEN'S SINGLES, ROUND 4
1-Serena Williams (US) d Margarita Gasparyan (Rus) 6-2 6-1.
5-Maria Sharapova (Rus) d 12-Belinda Bencic (Sui) 7-5 7-5.
MEN'S DOUBLES, ROUND 2
Marco Cecchinato/Andreas Seppi (Ita)
d 15-Marc Lopez/Feliciano Lopez (Spa) 1-6 7-6(1) 7-5.
MEN'S DOUBLES, ROUND 3
14-Treat Huey (Phi)/Max Mirnyi (Blr)
d 4-Rohan Bopanna (Ind)/Florin Mergea (Rou) 6-4 6-3.
9-Vasek Pospisil (Can)/Jack Sock (US)
d Samuel Groth/Lleyton Hewitt (Aus) 6-4 6-2.
16-Pablo Cuevas (Uru)/Marcel Granollers (Spa)
d 2-Ivan Dodig (Cro)/Marcelo Melo (Bra) 7-6(3) 2-6 6-3.
Daniel Nestor (Can)/Radek Stepanek (Cze)
d Pablo Andujar/Pablo Carreno (Spa) 5-7 6-4 6-4.
WOMEN'S DOUBLES, ROUND 3
Anastasia Rodionova/Arina Rodionova (Aus)
d Dominika Cibulkova (Svk)/Kirsten Flipkens (Bel) 5-7 6-2 6-4.
2-Chan Yung-Jan/Chan Hao-Ching (Tpa)
d Jocelyn Rae/Anna Smith (GBr) 6-3 6-4.
12-Anna-Lena Gronefeld (Ger)/CoCo Vandeweghe (US)
d Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (Cro)/Barbora Strycova (Cze) 7-6(5) 3-6 6-3.
7-Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka (Cze)
d 10-Anabel Medina/Arantxa Parra (Spa) 6-2 7-6(7).
MIXED DOUBLES, ROUND 1
Alla Kudryavtseva (Rus)/Robert Lindstedt (Swe) d
7-Raquel Atawo (US)/Raven Klaasen (RSA) 6-7(4) 6-2 1-0 10-4.
5-Elena Vesnina (Rus)/Bruno Soares (Bra)
d WC-Zheng Saisai (Chi)/Chung Hyeon (Kor) 6-3 6-7(4) 1-0 10-7.
Martina Hingis (Sui)/Leander Paes (Ind)
d Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (Rus) /Dominic Inglot (GBr) 6-3 7-5.