Fred Couples is a Rafael Nadal devotee

 “Boy, does he not like to lose,”

“He is just such a decent kid, who is very humble as well as immensely talented,” he said. “I love the passion he brings to what he does. He is a champion in so many ways.”

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 Fred Couples is a Rafael Nadal devotee

The sun is dipping behind the Santa Rosa mountains and Fred Couples is seated next to the Net Post watching Rafael Nadal play doubles on court No 3. Without turning a hair, he reveals that he had exchanged a number of text messages with Tiger Woods that morning and that the pair will play a practice round at Augusta next week, before Woods’ return to the golf tour that is expected to be a bit of a story. "Tiger seems to be in a very good frame of mind," Couples said. "I regard him as a friend and it's going to be good to see him again."

Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, is every bit the kind of person you would expect having seen him play golf so many times on television: personable, eloquent, good-natured and he glides through the grounds of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, rolling his shoulders in exactly the same way as he does when strolling the fairways of the world preparing to send the ball on its way precisely to where he wants it to land.

In that same manner, Couples has become a Nadal devotee. They were introduced a couple of years ago and have played the odd round of golf at the famed Madison Country Club in La Quinta where after a few holes you will be approached by a member of staff asking if you would like anything to eat. (I was told that someone once ordered steak, medium rare, and eggs as a bit of a laugh, and on the tee two holes later, a waiter approached with...steak, medium rare, and eggs on the finest crockery. Cue delay of round.)

Couples is just as laid back a character as you might expect, and so he and Nadal have struck an immediate chord. But he has also seen that the Spaniard brings just as much intensity to the golf course as he does to the tennis court - “Boy, does he not like to lose,” Couples said, and boy, is he right.

Remarkably, Couples and his manager are trying to work out his travel schedule for the rest of the year and would like to take in as much tennis as he can. Monte Carlo? “Be nice to see that one day?” Wimbledon? “Been there a couple of times before but sure would like to go back.” So what else does he like about Nadal as a player and as a person? “He is just such a decent kid, who is very humble as well as immensely talented,” he said. “I love the passion he brings to what he does. He is a champion in so many ways.”

Well, he was half a champion this weekend, losing in the semi finals of the BNP Paribas Open to Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia: one of those days when he could not quite find all of his game at the decisive moments, but, typically, he responded a few hours later by teaming up with Marc Lopez, his fellow Spaniard, to win the doubles (maybe we should call that couples) title, defeating Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, the reigning Wimbledon champions, 7-6, 6-3. All week, the pair played doubles superbly, Lopez inspired, Rafa revelling in his partner's inspiration.

But there was a precise symmetry between how Nadal and Roger Federer, the best two players in the world, were defeated last week. Federer lost a final set tie-break (to Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus) as did Nadal. Federer was asked if he would analyse the tie-break and dismissed that idea because he should not have had to play it in the first place. Nadal felt equally frustrated that it should have come to sudden death.

Asked if he was passive in the tie-break, Nadal said: “I was feeling more nervous than passive because I never had to arrive in this tie-break. That’s my feeling.” And so he was asked would we need to wait until the clay court season to see the ‘real Rafa’ (whereas whose who have watched him thus far this year accept he is almost there already)?

“I (the real Rafa) never went,” he said, “but since I start 2010 I was playing at my best. I was playing my best all the time. I came to the hard courts with a big confidence and I have been playing unbelieveable. Against (Andy) Murray in Australia, I was playing fine. Here I have beaten (John) Isner and a very good (Tomas) Berdych so I was happy with what I did. I am playing at my best level I know that. But not today.

“The mental thing, I gonna do it well. I was always a winner. I was a very good competitor and I gonna be a very good competitor and a winner another time. Today was an accident, that’s my feeling because I was playing well enough to win the tournament. I have to learn to be more aggressive next time and to convert the opportunities.” And he will.