Frustration for Nadal

Nadal may be as close as it gets to invincible on clay but his game clearly needs more than a tweak or two on grass. He did not merely struggle to dispatch number 28 seed Robin Soderling of Sweden. At times he was fighting for his Wimbledon life.

And when the rain returned at 8.15pm in their third round match, which spanned five rain breaks, the score was poised at 6-4 6-4 6-7 4-6 with Nadal leading 2-0 and 30-30 on his own serve in the fifth set.

Nadal, with a break of serve, is still favourite to come through the trickiest of encounters when the match resumes on Tuesday. He can count himself unlucky, however, to be in the lower half of the draw which has been affected worst by the inclement weather.

On the second Tuesday of the tournament the Spaniard finds himself still in the third round and having to play every day while Federer is in the quarter-finals already with his feet up after Tommy Haas withdrew injured.

The Swede began well. He had a break point in the second game of the match and it was as well for Nadal that he failed to take it. It allowed the man from Majorca to discover his rhythm and he produced a series of forehand winners in the seventh game to earn the key break. The set was his when the Swede pushed a forehand beyond the baseline.

The rains came for the first time with Nadal leading 4-3 in the second set and while they tried to resume after 20 minutes once more they were sent scurrying back to the changing rooms amid the warm-up and were forced to sit around waiting for some two and three quarter hours.

When they resumed Nadal took the set at a canter and it seemed Soderling was on his way out with little more than a whimper. However, the Swede upped his aggression, took some chances, and broke the Nadal serve twice and took the third set to a tie-break.

It twisted one way and then the other. Nadal saved a set point and then with the score at 7-6 and match point Nadal had his favourite looping forehand to finish off the Swede. He would make that shot 19 times out of 20 but this time he put it an inch wide of the tramline, although he challenged the call of out. With the rain beginning to pour once more the decision went in favour of the line judge and Nadal was consigned to yet more waiting in the locker room.

When they returned after another hour and threequarters Soderling played a perfect rally and a big ace to clinch the tie-break and Nadal was into a fourth set he also lost with his timing having gone awry. He can only hope it returns when they resume on Tuesday.