Valverde's team had been given room to breathe when Caisse d'Epargne rider Ivan Gutierrez had been part of the early breakaway.
But Valverde said it had been important to keep a close eye on their rivals.
"Personally, I feel fine," said the Spaniard, whose hopes of a top finish on the race have been dashed by two early exits in 2005 and last year due to injury. "The heat made the stage a bit more difficult, but the pace [of the peloton] wasn't too hard."
Discovery Channel team manager Johan Bruyneel said he was happy to see all his main riders playing leading roles.
"Leipheimer, [Alberto] Contador, [Yaroslav] Popovych and [Vladimir] Gusev were all up there with the peloton," said the Belgian, who oversaw all seven of Lance Armstrong's victories on the race.
"I'm happy the way it went, but I'm expecting the attacks to go on Sunday [yesterday]. It will be a very difficult stage."
Yesterday's stage from Le Grand Bornand to Tignes was tipped as the hardest day of three in total in the Alps. It featured six climbs in total, three of which were graded category one, and the race's first summit finish.
RSS