Rafael Nadal promised he wasn’t bluffing his Australian Open rivals after marching mercilessly into the second round on Monday.
The 14-time grand slam made a mockery of his outsider status with a 6-3 6-2 6-2 mauling of seasoned Russian Mikhail Youzhny.
Playing just his eighth competitive match in six months, Nadal took less than two hours to join three-time finalist Andy Murray as a straight-sets first-day winner.
Nadal had expressed doubts about his ability to compete for the title after being sidelined for much of 2014 with a back issue.
An appendectomy in November then ended the Spaniard’s season before he suffered an inglorious first-round loss to world No.127 Michael Berrer in Doha two weeks ago.
Nadal, though, looked every bit the world No.3 and championship threat in sweeping past Youzhny in one hour, 50 minutes.
Despite his crushing victory, Nadal was sticking to his story that he didn’t rate alongside world No.1 Novak Djokovic, second seed Roger Federer or Murray as a leading title chance.
“What I say the other day is the real thing,” Nadal said.
“Today is very hard to speak about having chances of something. I have one match.
“That’s better than two days ago, but I need more to feel that I am ready for something very important here.
“I hope this match will give me confidence for the next round.”
That will come on Wednesday against American qualifier Tim Smyczek, who ousted Australian wildcard Luke Saville in straight sets.
Murray defeated Indian qualifier Yuki Bhambri 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7-3) to book a showdown with local hope Marinko Matosevic.
“He’s a good ball striker. Big guy. Serves well. He works extremely hard. He has a good work ethic. Yeah, should be a fun match,” Murray said.
Matosevic was forced to go the distance to clinch his long-awaited first win in six appearances at his home-town major, outlasting Russian qualifier Alexander Kudryavtsev 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 4-6 7-5 6-3.
Czech seventh seed Tomas Berdych outclassed Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-3 7-6 (7-1) 6-3, while Open dark horse Grigor Dimitrov made light work of Germany’s Dustin Brown.
Bulgaria’s 10th seed broke Brown five times to progress 6-2 6-3 6-2 in just 67 minutes.
The 2014 Wimbledon semi-finalist next plays Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko, a five-set first-round winner over Argentina’s Maximo Gonzalez.
South African 14th seed Kevin Anderson beat Diego Schwartzman of Argentina 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 5-7 6-4, while French 29th seed Jeremy Chardy took out exciting Croatian teenager Borna Coric 3-6 6-4 7-5 6-4.
Other seeds to progress included France’s Richard Gasquet and Belgium’s David Goffin, who eliminated the oldest man in the draw, 36-year-old American qualifier Michael Russell, 6-3 6-3 5-7 6-0.
