If those final three winning sets against Mikhail Youzhny yesterday did not make it clear enough, Rafael Nadal put it into his own words: “I play my best game on grass in my life, no?” That was his view after coming back from a predicament of two sets down with the old, No 2 Court “graveyard of champions” cliché looming. Except that Nadal is no Wimbledon champion and, at that stage, did not look one. Those last three sets, though, were something special and he wants the world to know it.

Readers of this series should also know that the cast list has suddenly changed. We have been following a route from qualifying to the final and along the way we have met the likes of Youzhny’s landlady, Jarkko Nieminen’s barking-mad No 1 fan and the lowest-ranked player in the Wimbledon qualifying competition. Now that we have bumped into Nadal, though, the company has somewhat shifted.

No landlady here. Nadal was fraternising with Ronnie Wood, of the Rolling Stones, at the All England Club on Wednesday, the introduction made by Pat Cash, and the impression was that Wood was more delighted to have met Nadal than the other way round. Indeed, Nadal, who knew Wood to be a musician, appeared slightly dumbfounded to hear that Wood had painted a picture of him.

“It’s a picture of you, serving, on the big stage,” Wood explained. Although whether this stage was Glastonbury or Centre Court remained unclear.

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BACKGROUND

• Federer back rested and too relaxed after holiday

• Djokovic shines to ensure golden year continues

• Ivanovic keeps the Serbia flag flying high

• Baghdatis causes steady rise in interest rates

BACKGROUND

• Wimbledon diary: Facebook serves up a success

• Woods sends cheeky message to Federer

Related Links

• Friday's order of play

• Results from SW19

Multimedia

• Mixed doubles live

• The Rafael Nadal blog

• Audio: day 11 talking points

But the point is that we are now in the quarter-finals and the fast lane. How long Nadal remains in it, though, is questionable because his victory was misleading. Yes, his game in those final three sets did reach breathtaking heights, but he got there only really when all doubt had been removed.

In the first two sets, Youzhny presented a formidable barrier, but, after that, he just gave the Spaniard a leg up. As Youzhny said himself: “When he saw I was going down, he went up.”

So do not mistake this match for an example of Nadal, the warrior. Yes, at two sets down, he did have to fight, but it was no battle, merely a one-round knockout. As soon as Nadal laid a punch on Youzhny, the Russian was out and listening for the count.

This is not to damn Youzhny as a quitter. He has a history of back pain and withdrew midway through his last preWimbledon tournament because of it. He has been able to last this far at Wimbledon, he explained afterwards, only because the rain breaks have allowed him to rest his back mid-match.

So yesterday, as the pain began to impede his movement, he started wishing for rain again. When that did not work, he thought about calling for a medical time-out instead, but that brought other issues, too. “I knew that if I called doctors against Nadal, it’s very difficult,” he said, “because if he sees that you have some problems, he has a lot of emotion, a lot of power, motivation.” At the end of the third set, though, he felt he had no option and the physio arrived. It had little impact, for Nadal had hit his stride.

So two conclusions then. One: if you play the way Youzhny did for those first two sets, then Nadal may be yours for the taking. If you play such sublime, touch tennis, keep your ground strokes low, vary the pace and surprise him every time you appear at the net, then you might stop him.

But, two: if you allow Nadal to hit the kind of form with which he eventually cleaned up yesterday, then you will struggle for a toehold. And now Nadal has played that well once, he will be confident he can do so again.

His best grass-court tennis? Surely worth another Wood watercolour.

Path to glory

Qualifying event
June 18 James May (GB) bt Lukas Lacko (Slovakia) 6-4, 6-3
June 19 Sam Warburg (US) bt May 6-3, 6-4
June 21 Warburg bt Kevin Kim (US) 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-1
First round, June 26 Florian Mayer (Ger) bt Warburg 6-4, 6-2, 6-2
Second round, June 28 Jarkko Nieminen (Fin) bt Mayer 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3
Third round, Monday Mikhail Youzhny (Russ) bt Nieminen 7-5, 7-6, 6-3
Fourth round, yesterday Rafael Nadal (Sp) bt Youzhny 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2