In this day and age of tennis Integrity Units and anti-corruption police, it is perhaps not the Net Post's place to tip its readers the wink on a decent bet but I'll be wagering a few quid on Pearl of Manacor at Newbury races next Sunday.

The horse, named by Harry Findlay, its owner, for Rafael Nadal, gets its first outing having impressed Mick Channon, its trainer on the gallops at his West Ilsley stables. If you want to check out the Pearl for yourself, go to www.mickchannon.tv and click on the colt's name under 'Latest Gallops'.

The timing of its debut appearance could hardly be more apt for, as gallops go, Nadal's towards the summit of men's tennis is pretty darned impressive. A major step towards the dethroning of Roger Federer came in Toronto at the weekend, when the Wimbledon champion won his fifth tournament in successio, lifting him to within 300 ranking points of the 12-time grand slam tournament champion.

Nadal, who has been ranked No 2 for a record 158 weeks, will become No 1 on Sunday (when the Pearl will hope to leave the opposition for dead) if he wins the title at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati and Federer loses before the semi-finals. After the Swiss-meister's second round loss to Gilles Simon of France in Canada last week when he seemed a shadow of his great self, such an event is not unconceivable.

If there is no change in Cincinnati (the only one of the nine Masters Series events in which Nadal has not reached the final), it may well occur on August 18 due to a calendar shift this season to accommodate the Olympics Games.

Last year, the Masters in Canada and Cincinnati were played two weeks later in the season than this year and because ranking points earned by players count towards their rankings for over a 52 week period, the 850 that Federer earned by reaching the 2007 Canada final and winning Cincinnati title will continue to count towards his ranking during the same tournaments this year.

By contrast, Nadal dropped only 230 points - 225 for reaching the Toronto semi-finals in 2007 and five for losing his first match in Cincinnati (when he retired with a left arm cramp against Juan Monaco of Argentina).

As of his triumph in Toronto, where he beat the German veteran Nicolas Kiefer 6-3, 6-2 in the final, Nadal leads the circuit with 61 match wins (61-7 record) and seven titles this season. Since losing in the second round to Juan Carlos Ferrero, his fellow Spaniard in the BNL D'Italia Masters in Rome on May 7 (when he was suffering from blistered feet), the 22-year-old has won 29 straight matches and five titles (Hamburg, Roland Garros, Queen's Club, Wimbledon, Toronto). Prior to that loss, he had won back-to-back titles at Monte-Carlo and Barcelona.

This week, he will attempt to clinch his seventh different Masters title and his 13th overall. Only Andre Agassi managed to win seven of nine Masters shields, capturing a record 17 such titles during his career. Federer ranks second behind Agassi with 14.

In his usual disarming manner, Nadal said: "Every player wants to be No 1, no? I would love to be No.1, but I am No 2 right now. I'm very happy for be No 2, because with my titles, with my points, in a normal situation I, well, would have been No 1 before. So I think I have to be happy, very happy anyway if I am No 1 or No 2. Because if I am No 2 it's because in front of me there is amazing player like Roger."

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Ashley Harkleroad is first the female tennis player to pose naked for Playboy. Not only that, she is the August issue's front cover image. In the rather more demure Tennis Week, the American who is at No 72 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour explained why she felt it was time to throw off modesty's bodice.