Nadal Means Business As He Mows Down Bjorkman

Rafael Nadal's left eyebrow, the most animated in all tennis, shot up towards the ceiling of one of the upstairs rooms at Queen's Club as the French Open champion, still looking a little tired, spoke about the differences between playing on clay and grass: "The sensation is a little bit strange." For everybody watching too. Still etched in the memory was that extraordinarily rapid win over Roger Federer, the world No1, in the Philippe Chatrier Stadium on Sunday, a straight-sets victory which jolted the tennis world to the core with its severity.

Nadal had little or no time to let the result sink in. It was only when he settled into his seat on Monday's Eurostar that he was able to reflect on his fourth successive title at Roland Garros, a victory which prompted Bjorn Borg, the Swede whose modern French Open record Nadal had just equalled, to suggest that the Spaniard would be the favourite for this year's Wimbledon title, a final he has lost for the past two years against Federer.

Nadal remains more than a little uncomfortable when any comparison is made between him and Borg, the winner of six French Open titles and five at the All England club. This is not to say that he is unaware of his position in the sport, but he has never been a braggart or the possessor of a huge ego, hence his muted response to his third and easiest French Open final victory over Federer. That said, the closeness of last year's Wimbledon final defeat by the Swiss still rankles. "I played an unbelievable match, but at the same time I lost a good chance to win my favourite tournament."

Such chances might be few and far between for most players. Nadal has both the ability and the desire to create more and the way he dispatched Sweden's Jonas Bjorkman 6-2, 6-2 in his opening match at Queen's yesterday afternoon underlined his quality on the surface. Bjorkman is essentially a doubles specialist these days, having passed his 36th birthday in March, but only two years ago he reached the Wimbledon semi-finals before being demolished by Federer.

In the first game Bjorkman displayed the touch and anticipation of a player steeped in grass-court acumen and something distantly remembered by aficionados of the surface and believed to be called serve and volley. Nadal let him have his moment - just the one game - and then began to hit the ball with a velocity that made it seem that the Swede might have been lying about his age. He simply could not get to the ball when Nadal opened his shoulders.

The Queen's crowd have yet to take to Nadal with openly corporate hearts but he is gradually winning them over. Today Andy Murray plays Latvia's Ernests Gulbis, a quarter-finalist in Paris. And that will be something quite different on the Pimmsometer.