Rafael Nadal was happy to see his confidence in his body play out with an emphatic win over Victor Estrella Burgos in the opening round of the Australian Open.
The world No.1 came into the tournament without having played a warm-up event following knee problems at the end of last season.
But he was anything but rusty as he raced to a 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 win in just an hour and 34 minutes.
Nadal said: "I always have doubts but at the same time I have the confidence that I was ready to start the tournament. That was the case.
"I'm happy for the start, of course. It's a positive start with a good result. If I do months without playing an official match it's always a little bit more difficult.
"But I started with positive feelings. That's most important thing for me now. Of course, there are things to improve. But the things that I need to improve, the matches will give me those things."
This is the 52nd grand slam of Nadal's career but the first without his long-time coach and uncle Toni Nadal in his box.
Toni announced early last season that he would cease to travel with his nephew at the end of 2017 to focus on the family's academy in Majorca.
Former world No.1 Carlos Moya has assumed the role of Nadal's main coach, and the 31-year-old Spaniard said: "Toni is the most important person in my career, everybody knows.
"I can't thank him enough for all the things. But today he is not here. He's doing a great job in my tennis academy. I have to think about the team that is here. I am happy with it."
Like the other players competing on Monday, Nadal was tight-lipped about Friday's eventful player meeting.
The Daily Mail reported that, after asking ATP and tournament officials to leave, player council chief Novak Djokovic addressed his fellow players and called for them to set up a separate union.
Djokovic argued the players should push for a greater share of tournament revenues to be allocated in prize money despite huge rises in recent years.
"Every year here in Australia, there is talks about new things," said Nadal. "I really believe that there is plenty of time later on the year to speak about things. But now is the moment, for me personally, to play tennis."
Back on the court, things were equally straightforward for Australian title hope Nick Kyrgios, who promised a new mature approach ahead of the tournament and largely delivered in a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Rogerio Dutra Silva.
Kyrgios received a code violation for swearing at a spectator who he felt was being too noisy but otherwise kept his focus on the matter in hand.
Elsewhere, a terrible day for America in the women's draw was compounded by defeats for eighth seed Jack Sock and 16th seed John Isner.
Third seed Grigor Dimitrov, a semi-finalist 12 months ago, eased past qualifier Dennis Novak 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 to begin his campaign in fine style.
It was a trickier first outing for sixth seed Marin Cilic, who dropped a set to Vasek Pospisil before coming through 6-2, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7/5).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here