Rafael Nadal made a special point yesterday of walking over to the two Queen's Club groundsmen, Dave and Graham Kimpton, and shaking their hands. He knows how to win friends and influence people does Rafa. Of his 31 lifetime matches on grass, none had given him more pleasure than that against Novak Djokovic on the last day of the last Artois Championships, which gave a British audience front-seat exposure to a rivalry gathering a fascinating momentum.

Nadal won the final 7-6, 7-5, becoming the first player to win the French Open and then back it up the next week with success on the greensward. These two sets on grass at Queen's Club lasted 27 minutes longer than had Nadal's three against Roger Federer at Roland Garros in the final a week earlier. And the Spaniard, the top seed, was almost 4-0 down in the first set yesterday, which goes to the heart of why he is acknowledged as the game's most fearsomely durable opponent.

Winning on clay has become his right. To win on grass, with its different physical strains, its extravagant bounces, its requirement for balance and clinical execution, takes a singular soul and Nadal is that. Djokovic, too, for the 21-year-old Serb hauled himself back to within two points of extending this climax to the three sets the audience clamoured for.

Even he, though, had to bow to the relentless determination Nadal had brought to this event, one he played throughout with half an eye on a golf course in Majorca. What to make of a man who would, if you twisted his arm, admit he would rather be somewhere else but has shown throughout his career a commitment to do what he does with unwavering focus?

It is what makes him an opponent to be feared at Wimbledon as never before. Federer won his 59th consecutive grass-court match in Germany yesterday and did not drop his serve all week, which suggests he is almost over the trauma of Paris. He will not have been surprised by the result at Queen's, but to see Nadal overcoming Ivo Karlovic, Andy Roddick and Djokovic in successive matches will surely have been burnt into his senses.

Nadal has a beautiful way with the ball and with words. “I have titles in all the surfaces right now, so I am a more complete player right now than one week before,” he said. “No, I am joking [but was he?]. If I don't have a title here, I played well the last years, too. Win here, win a prestigious tournament like this, a very traditional tournament here in London, best players of the world are here in the past. So to be here, close to these other players, is very nice.”

Djokovic had come out of the traps with such purpose it looked as if he was going to leave Nadal as battered as he left David Nalbandian in Saturday's semi-final, when he lost just one game. Had Nadal not stood firm when Djokovic had a break point to lead 4-0, it may have been very different. He gradually found his range and if the Spaniard had the better of most rallies, Djokovic was clinging limpet-like to his task, to the extent that he had a set point in the tie-break. The riposte was an off-forehand winner, another forced error and then an unreturnable serve on set point. They are becoming a Nadal habit.

From 2-0 down in the second set, Djokovic hauled himself back and served for it at 5-4 but with every step he took forward, Nadal rattled him with sweeping passes, remarkable “gets” and volleying of the Sampras/Rafter class. The Spaniard saw out the match with a joyous smash and proceeded to dig his teeth into the London Grass Court Cup. Queen's Club had never witnessed anything like it.