Haley's Comet, next expected in the skies in 2062, comes into earth's orbit more often than you might see Rafael Nadal stand on a grass court in the rain and plaintively gaze up at the umpire with imploring eyes to keep playing.

But last night as his match against Sweden's Robin Soderling sat poised at 7-6 in a third set tiebreak, with the Spaniard two sets up, that's exactly what Nadal was seeking. It was a weak effort from the number two seed as the rain began again to fall heavily, but Nadal desperately wanted to finish the third set, pocket his win and clear out of Wimbledon.

Rightly, the umpire called for the covers, and when the French Open champion returned it was Soderling who sensed that things were not all right in the Mallorcan camp.

While Nadal deservedly won the opening two sets 6-4, 6-4, he did so unconvincingly. One break of serve in the first set, taken with a driving forehand past Soderling at the net, which dipped ferociously for 5-3, was enough to draw the first blood.

The second set was less confidently won. Although the Spaniard broke Soderling's serve in the first game, Nadal faced four break points on his serve, gave it up for 3-3, but broke back immediately for 3-4 as the first rain clouds swept across the All England club.

Nadal came back and served for 5-4 and again confidently held for what looked like an unassailable 2-0 lead. At this stage of the game, it would have been counter-intuitive to suggest that the 28th seed, Soderling, could fight back into the match against the world number two.

While the Swede's serve was working for him and banging in enough aces and unreturnable first deliveries, Nadal had been working it out pretty well. With the grotty, dank air and the heavy ball, though, the favourite was being asked to play in conditions that were far from perfect for his game, and when Soderling took the next set on a tiebreak, then broke Nadal for 6-4 in the fourth set to draw level at two sets each, the momentum had definitely swung the way of the unheralded player.

But as Nadal has demonstrated, both last year and this year in both the French Open and on the grass, his capacity to stay in matches is second to none. While his ferocious forehand may not have put as much play on the ball as he would have liked, and while the ball may not have bounced quite high enough for him to employ his armoury as he would have liked, he opened the fifth set full of vim and vigour. Taking a 2-0 lead, the rain came again to force the match into a second day, all level but with Nadal a break up in the fifth.

A few matches were completed, with the battle of the veterans between 35-year-old Jonas Bjorkman and 36-year-old Wayne Arthurs taken by the Swede. Bjorkman showed what a difference a year can make and got through to the fourth round without much difficulty. His 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 win took less than an hour and a half.

Mikhail Youzhny played to his seeding of 14 to beat Finland's Jarkko Nieminen in three sets, 7-5, 7-6(5), 6-3, with the 10th seed Marco Baghdatis coming through against Argentina's David Nalbandian, again in three sets, 6-2, 7-5, 6-0.

Baghdatis was less than enamoured that middle Sunday was not used to play the backlog of matches. It was the sunniest day of the week. "Yeah, it would have been great to play yesterday," he said. "I mean now we have to play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in the bottom half (of the draw) and it's pretty tough."

There won't be too many feeling his pain. With his win and entry into the fourth round, the least the Cypriot can take away is £47,250.