Rafa Nadal celebrated his first day as Olympic champion and the new world No 1 by flying to New York. In typical Rafa fashion, he was already focused on his next goal of improving his very record in the US Open, which begins next week.

Reflecting properly on what he has already achieved will for him have to wait.

The Olympic title was his eighth of 2008 and the 31st of his career. He is the highest-ranked player to win the men's singles at the Games, in his record 160th and last week as the number two, before being the first left-hander for ten years to get to the top of the rankings – despite still considering Roger Federer to be better.

Having become the first player since Bjorn Borg 28 years ago to win at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon, Rafa managed a great feat by adding an Olympic gold medal. While not Steffi Graf's Golden Grand Slam from 1988, it is still exceptional in modern men's tennis.

It is not just the growing status of the Olympics among the leading tennis players that counted for Rafa. It is also the hard courts the event was played on. Since the US Open switched to that surface at Flushing Meadows in 1978, no man has succeeded in winning there as well as at the summer's clay and grass court grand slams.

To collect major titles on three different surfaces was particularly difficult for Rafa, whose results on hard courts have not matched those elsewhere. When he won Wimbledon last month, it was in his third consecutive final there. At the US Open, he has only got to the quarter-finals once in five attempts so far, and never further.

Reaching the top of the podium in Beijing required Rafa to get past Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals, against whom he now has a 10-4 winning record but with all the defeats coming in their previous five meetings on hard courts. And he had lost both his matches before on the surface against Fernando Gonzalez, his final opponent.

The increasingly fine footwork and tremendous speed around the court that make Rafa at last a serious contender at Flushing Meadows were all the more notable in Beijing as he arrived exhausted from all his earlier exertions this year and struggled through his opening match, losing a set to Potito Starace, an unremarkable Italian.

Following his victory in the gold medal match, Rafa was provided by his kit sponsor, Nike, with a T-shirt which had written on the front, in gold Chinese characters on a red background, 'The Greater the Opponent, The Greater the Victory'. At the Olympics, the greatest opponents Rafa overcame were fatigue and his own body.

"When I got to Beijing I was incredibly tired and the first few days practicing were very hard" admitted Rafa. "The only reason I was able to win was the lift I got from living in the Olympic village. Being among many other great athletes was fantastic. And the support I got from the rest of the Spanish team was amazing.

"Although they don't know it, it was thanks to them that I somehow found the energy and mental strength to get the gold medal. I would not have been able to manage this from a hotel, however luxurious it was. The feeling at the end on the podium was indescribable. I am very happy to have made it to Olympic champion.

"The Olympic Games are very special. I know in tennis the grand slams are a little bit more important. But here you only have one chance every four years. For sportsmen, the Olympic Games are more important than anything. I feel like I win for all my country. That's more special, no? I win for a lot of people, not only for me.

"I enjoyed it a lot more than a normal tournament" added Rafa, who relished rather than resented being the most popular Olympic village resident, constantly being asked for autographs, photos and swapping Games pins. His one regret is the picture he had taken with the similarly in-demand Michael Phelps.

"It was a pleasure to meet him and speak with him" said Rafa. "But I would like to see him again. As, in the photograph I had taken with him, I came out very badly. It would be good to have another, better photograph." London in 2012 beckons.