Yes. As someone pointed out in another thread, Nadal's insane defensive skills turned Soderling's 50+ winners into "only" 32. Against another player, Soderling would have looked rather terrific. It's often the case that you play and look only as good as your oponent lets you.
That said, I still don't think he was quite at the level of his 2008 RG. Then again, he didn't have to be at that level to sweep the clay seasons from 2005 through 2007.
In the 2008 RG, Nadal played at such phenomenal level that it makes it impossible to evaluate the performance of his opponents. As Wilander once said about Lendl, "sometimes he makes you look like you're playing badly, but that's only because he is playing perfect." Consider this: In the 2008 RG, Nadal broke his opponents' serve about 65% of the time on average, and I believe he had above 50% breaking percentages in all his matches except in the semifinal. What this means, in theory, is that he would have won all those matches by simply returning serve in every game, never having to serve a single point, which is something to think about. For perspective, the average breaking percentage at RG is about 24%, or once every 4 returning games. Nadal broke his opponents in nearly 2 out of 3 returning games on average, and in some matches it was as high as 3 out of 4. With this in mind, it's easy to understand it would be impossible for almost anyone who had the misfortune of playing him to look good in his match against him during that tournament.
