It's now only a matter of time before Andy Murray becomes World No 2.
Re-gather
Meanwhile, Nadal's confidence is growing and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to the hard courts.
In some ways this is a 'free week' for him; despite what he achieved in South America, Indian Wells is still primarily the next step in his rehabilitation towards achieving full fitness in time for the claycourt season.
Top players like Nadal never admit to having doubts while they are going through difficult moments - they wait until they have come through it - and I'm sure that Nadal will have had a lot of doubts as to whether he could compete against really good players like Nicolas Almagro and David Ferrer.
The fact that Nadal played as well as he did in the final against Ferrer - he basically destroyed him - will have no doubt buoyed Rafa. Yes, Ferrer was poor but Nadal made him play poorly.
His results over the last three weeks prove that he's on an upward curve and one of his undoubted strengths is his ability to re-gather and move on, no matter how well or poorly he plays.
Improvement
There are signs too that Ernests Gulbis is rediscovering his form.
The 24-year-old became the first guy in over a year to come through qualifying and win a title at Delray Beach proving what we've always known - that beneath that volatile exterior, he's a very talented player.
Gulbis is now back up to world 67 and has qualified for Indian Wells, so there are definite signs of improvement. Hopefully it won't be long until he starts playing the sort of tennis that he enabled him to climb up to world 21 only a couple of years ago.
It sounds obvious but without hard work you won't keep up with the best for long periods. If you're good enough you can get a streaky win, like the one he had against Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon, but to win consistently you have to apply yourself.
I remember him saying after the Australian Open that he'd decided to cut out drinking and smoking - you would have thought that was a given as a tennis player but clearly his priorities have not been hitting as many tennis balls as possible!
You certainly don't want to have regrets when you stop playing - and a player of his talent certainly shouldn't be outside the top 50 and going through qualifying.
Watch live coverage of the Indian Wells Masters from 9pm on Sky Sports 4 HD on Saturday March 9.
