Ok, this might be a tad obscure but I thought I'd mention it. This works:

<td style="white-space: nowrap;">01/01/2009</td>

This does not:

<td><span style="white-space: nowrap;">01/01/2009</span></td>

Seems like it should or am I missing something with the white-sace property only applying to block elements or something?

I can't reproduce this, can you post a small document that demonstrates the problem?