Dogged Nadal Refuses to Be Cowed By Gasquet's 'perfect Set'

Ideally, for the purposes of drama and tension, the world No1 spot should still be in doubt when the Tennis Masters Cup rounds off the season, but Roger Federer, winner of three slams this year to take his total to 12, ensured he could not be overtaken when he won his home tournament in Basel last month. Rafael Nadal's challenge had faded at the US Open when tendonitis in both knees brought him to a virtual standstill, although it was abundantly clear from his opening 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 round robin victory over Richard Gasquet of France that Rafa, those knees still bandaged, intends to remind everybody here that he remains the main threat to Federer.

He has clung to Federer's coat-tails since July 2005, a couple of months after he had won the first of his three consecutive French Open titles, and will become the first player to finish at No2 for three consecutive years since the current ranking system was introduced in 1973. Had he beaten the Swiss in the Wimbledon final, and he came precious close, then the 21-year-old left-hander from Mallorca might well have toppled Federer this year. Victory here this week would go a long way to persuading Nadal that the seemingly impossible might be achieved next year.

Gasquet, playing this tournament for the first time, had cut short Andy Murray's late surge to Shanghai when he beat the Scot over three sets in the quarter-finals of the last Masters series event of the year in Paris 10 days ago. He clearly took the decision against Nadal that there was no point trying to play percentage tennis. The Frenchman, just a couple of weeks younger than the Spaniard, went for his shots like a man possessed, and literally left the Nadal standing on occasions.

Gasquet's backhand, a wonderful flowing shot, has always been an immense weapon, one that pinned Federer like an insect to a collector's board on the clay of Monte Carlo two years ago. Now he has added a forehand that is becoming increasingly more reliable under pressure, and was almost equally as spectacular as his backhand during the opening set. Nadal could only shake his head and knit his brows, waiting for the storm to subside a little. "To beat Rafa you have to play a perfect match. I played a perfect set," said Gasquet.

There was no disputing that, even if it was all a little puzzling for the audience in the Qi Zhong stadium that has hosted the TMC for the last three years, with one more remaining before London takes over. The Chinese take the world tennis order at face value, and expected Nadal to win. They duly greeted his victory with the sort of ecstatic applause that was a mixture of almost naive enthusiasm and wonderment. And very charming it was, as if the sport had suddenly been re-invented, and all the recent talk of match fixing and any other skulduggery were no more than a temporary bad smell that had been wafted away in the breeze.

Of course, the questioning of the players did not go away. What, Gasquet was asked, did he think about an Italian player [Alessio di Mauro] being punished with a nine-month ban by the ATP for betting on tennis matches? Was it fair? Reaching back into the great tradition of French philosophical and logical thinking, Gasquet replied: "Spanish tennis is incredible. They are better than French guys now. We are trying to play like them." For sheer unadulterated avoidance of a question it was almost as perfect as his first set, although the more prosaic explanation was that he mistook the word 'punished' for Spanish.

The opening day turned into a Spanish fiesta when David Ferrer defeated Serbia's Novak Djokovic, 6-4, 6-4. Djokovic, the world No 3 and this year's US Open finalist, came to China earlier than most of the other seven in order to be fully prepared. Much good has it done him so far.