Before we begin – don’t mention the foot.

Rafael Nadal made that very clear on the eve of The Championships: enough tittle-tattle about the tootsies, Ed.

“I’m going to be talking about my foot today and not any more, if it’s fine for you guys,” he said with a slightly weary look on Saturday.

“We cannot be talking about my foot every single day.

“If not, we forget the most important thing: that is tennis.”

So, keep your voices down and do try to keep this to yourselves – Rafa’s foot looks fine.

No hint of a limp; no sign of a wince.

His foot survived four sets and three-and-a-half hours against Francisco Cerundolo to point it and its partner towards the second round and a meeting with Ricardas Berankis.

As for the “most important thing”, that is still a work in progress.

Nadal won 6-4, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 but it was awfully hard work at times.

Then again, he can hardly expect his grass court tennis to be in tip-top condition: he has not played on the green stuff in three years.

With that in mind, his first outing on Centre Court was not bad. It was not great, but it was not bad.

That was in part due to his 41 unforced errors (and 52 forced) and in a larger part due to young Mr Cerundolo and his fabulous forehand.

“All credit to Fran. He started to play great and he has been a very tough opponent,” Nadal said.

“Grass is not a surface we play very often and especially in my case, for different reasons, the last three years I didn’t put a foot on the grass.

“It always takes a while – this has been my first match and every day is a test and today has been one of those important tests.

“At the beginning of the tournament, especially under the circumstances that I arrived here, the victory is the most important thing because that gives me the chance to practise tomorrow again and to have another match in two days.

“And I’m happy for that, without a doubt.”

The 23-year-old Cerundolo is ranked No.41 in the world and the sum total of his Grand Slam experience until now is two first round losses at Roland-Garros.

His grass court experience is on a par with that: three matches played, all of them this year, and only one of them won.

His introduction, then, to Wimbledon was just about as good as it gets: playing a two-time former champion and the newly crowned 14-time Roland-Garros champion on Centre Court.

For many a debutant, their greatest opponent is stage fright as much as the person on the other side of the net.

Walking out into what Novak Djokovic refers to as “the cradle of our sport” immediately induces a dry mouth, racing pulse and sweaty palms. A mental note of the location of the facilities usually helps in such moments but not so for Cerundolo.

The man from Buenos Aires had a quick look around him, eyed up the opposition and got to work.

He hits his forehand as if his life depended upon it (he was actually hitting it faster than Nadal in the second set – and Nadal’s forehand has made many a grown man tremble) and he nips about the court like… well, like a 23-year-old world No.41 with nothing to lose.

On the other side of the net, Nadal was having trouble with the blustery wind and with Cerundolo’s stubborn refusal to go away.

For most of the first set, it was as if Nadal was nervously flicking through the instruction manual, searching for the chapter on grass court tennis. And after almost an hour, he found it.

When he fended off three break points with big and accurate serves in the ninth game, the Spaniard moved his game up a notch.

When he broke Cerundolo to take the opening set, he started to pull away from his young rival in every department.

As the second set unfolded, Cerundolo hung on as best he could but he had the look of a man who knew he was fighting a losing battle. Nadal, on the other hand, was easing into his Grand Slam routine.

When he saw a chance, he took it.

When he faced a difficult situation, his brow furrowed a little more and his focus became a little more intense.

Problem solved.

As he applied more and more pressure, he was able to keep Cerundolo where he wanted him: as far away from playing that walloping forehand as possible.

That tactic worked well enough until we were into the thick end of the third set.

The Argentine had clearly spotted Nadal’s instruction manual and had a quick squint at it himself.

He was learning fast.

Meanwhile, Nadal’s game was fraying at the edges.

A handful of unforced errors cost him his serve and suddenly he was 5-3 down. As the errors continued to flow from his racket strings and Cerundolo saw his opportunity coming into sharp focus, the momentum of the match changed dramatically – Cerundolo took the third set.

Still Nadal could not limit the errors and his opponent was soon a break to the good in the fourth set; he was almost two breaks to the good until the former champion fended off four break points in the fifth game.

But when Nadal held serve with ease two games later, he turned to his box and gave them a huge “Vamos!”.

Now he was fired up.

And over the net, Cerundolo was about to play a shocker of a service game – Nadal was back in business.

A handful of minutes later, he was into the second round.

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