Rafa Nadal's brutal return after Australian Open triumph

Rafa Nadal didn't need to be at his scintillating best, but was able to race through his first match on the ATP Tour since winning his 21st grand slam title.

Nadal has earlier been involved in a bizarre moment with his training partner Stefan Kozlov, but the interrupted didn't faze the Spaniard.

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Taking to the main show court after World No.2 Daniil Medvedev's win, Nadal was in cruise control against American Denis Kudla in his first match from winning the Australian Open.

The 35-year-old Spaniard seemed to have some problems with the humidity on a warm night in the coastal resort town and decided to save as much energy as he could, sealing the contest in 76 minutes with his 16th forehand winner and 26th overall.

Nadal lost just four points on his serve while breaking his opponent three times to race to his 11th consecutive win in the 2022 season.

The win takes Nadal 11-0 and for 2022.

After becoming the man with the most grand slams in history, taking over Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, Nadal would have been pleased with his match after taking a short break from the Tour.

World No.2 Medvedev also played his first match since losing to Nadal in the Australian Open final.

The Russian proved too consistent for the flair of Benoit Paire to seal a 6-3, 6-4 victory.

The 26-year-old Russian will overtake Novak Djokovic at the top of the rankings if he wins the title in Acapulco.

Medvedev, who won the 2021 US Open and was a runner-up last month at the Australian Open, is playing in Mexico for the first time.

He has not played since his loss to Rafael Nadal at Melbourne Park last month.

"It's not easy to come back after some rest and some time off competition," Medvedev said, after he rallied from a break down in the second set against Paire.

"I managed to fight until the end against a very tough opponent and I'm happy that I managed to win."

Medvedev play either Alex Hernandez or Pablo Andujar in the next round.

Rafa Nadal involved in hilarious training moment

Stefan Kozlov was in the middle of a training session with Nadal at the Mexican Open, a day before the Spaniard was set to take to the court.

However, due to an injury and withdrawal from Maxime Cressy, Kozlov was chosen as the lucky loser main draw entry.

The 130th ranked American lost in the Mexico Open qualifying, but gained the call up and was to face Grigor Dimitrov.

And the American said Nadal was super excited for the 24-year-old.

"I was playing a practice set with Rafa ... he breaks his string, goes to his bag. I just happen to check my phone for whatever reason," Kozlov said after the match.

"I just had an intuition and then I have 20 text messages ... they're like 'get over here'.

"I dropped all my stuff. I told Rafa, he's got a big smile on his face. He's super excited for me, he knew I was No.1 lucky loser.

"I got over here and I had about 30 minutes to get ready."

Footage of their training session showed Kozlov rushing to leave the court with Nadal wishing him luck.

Kozlov could be heard on the phone asking: "Who do I play?"

Nadal will now play Kozlov in the next round after the American won his match.

with AAP

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