We all knew it was there, it just looked increasingly unlikely that David Nalbandian's ability would ever resurface, as he slid down the rankings and appeared to have lost interest in reclaiming his top ten position.
In Madrid last week however, Nalbandian pulled off the unlikeliest of back-to-back victories, in defeating Nadal, Djokovic and Federer and in so doing achieved a feat not witnessed since the days when Boris Becker patrolled the courts; that of beating the top three in the world rankings consecutively.
Nalbandian's resurgence from a desperately poor year by his standards can only be good for the men's game and if he can capitalise on his week's triumph, he would be in with an opportunity of regaining the heights of a top five place in the rankings and become a serious challenger to the current top three once more.
Talking of rankings, this week sees the race to Shanghai continue in Lyon, St Petersburg and Basel and early casualties this week were Tommy Haas, who withdrew from Lyon and David Ferrer, whose Basel defeat by Agustin Calleri was his second consecutive first round loss.
Mathematically, anyone down as low as Ivo Karlovic at 25 in the race could still qualify for Shanghai, with places six to eight still available and Andy Murray made a positive start to his week's work by dismissing Belorussian giant Max Mirnyi in straight sets on Tuesday.
Roger Federer can claim the end of year number one ranking by retaining his Basel trophy on Sunday and got off to a shaky start yesterday, dropping a set to German left hander Michael Berrer, before sneaking through in three to set up a match with either Del Potro or Russell in round two.
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