Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer took their first steps towards Olympic gold yesterday with contrasting victories in the men's singles.

Top seed Federer mocked those already dismissing him as yesterday's man with a classy 6-4 6-2 defeat of Russian Dmitry Tursunov but Spain's Nadal dropped a set to Italy's Potito Starace for the first time before winning 6-2 3-6 6-2.

"Sometimes it plays a trick in your mind where you think maybe you're not playing that well, but it's actually not the case," Federer told reporters, clearly relieved to be up and running at the tournament after a difficult five weeks.

"I played well, hit some great winners, got some good balls back. I was playing very solid."

Nadal, who will replace Federer as world number one next Monday, opened proceedings on Centre Court clad in the red and yellow of his national flag as Prince Felipe of Spain looked on.

After rattling through the first set with some flashing winners he was pegged back when Starace took the second set with some resilient tennis of his own.

Nadal had the crowd gasping with one incredible pick-up from a Starace drop shot early in the decider as he regained his momentum. A dispirited Starace dumped a drop shot into the net to hand Nadal his first victory in Olympic tennis.

Sunday's rain allowed just nine completed results and organisers crammed 65 matches in to yesterday's manic order of play meaning a feast of action at the nine-court tennis complex.

Nicolas Massu, the surprise gold medallist in singles and doubles four years ago in Athens, beat Belgium's Steve Darcis 6-4 7-5.

In the women's singles, American Serena Williams wasted little time reaching the women's second round, polishing off Olga Govortsova 6-3 6-1 in a match interrupted on Sunday. Williams, however, seemed annoyed with her schedule.

Hewitt record

Australian Lleyton Hewitt was involved in a record-breaking doubles match yesterday when he and partner Chris Guccione beat Agustin Calleri and Juan Monaco, of Argentina, 4-6 7-6 18-16.

The match, which lasted three hours 17 minutes, surpassed the record amount of games in a best-of-three set men's match at the Olympics since tennis returned to the Games in 1988.

Earlier in the day, Hewitt beat Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman 7-5 7-6 to set up a second round tie with Nadal.

Other result: Yen-Hsun (Taiwan) bt Murray (GB) 7-6 6-4.