A whole 349 days after he last played elite tennis, Rafael Nadal purposefully ran, scrambled, returned on court again. This time, though, he won. With ease. The 37-year-old set aside familiar foe Dominic Thiem with a dismissive scoreline of 7-5, 6-1 in their round of 32 clash at Brisbane International - a tune-up tournament for the upcoming Australian Open. As is his wont, Nadal came up trumps not by hitting more winners, but by making fewer errors and retrieving an inordinately higher number of balls. The first set was a relatively close affair, and Nadal won it 7-5 on serve. But he made the gulf in the match abundantly clear in the second set, which he won with a roaring 6-1 margin. The Spanish southpaw was away for almost a year with a hip injury. Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam singles champion, last played in the second round of the Australian Open in January, and eventually decided to have surgery on his troublesome hip in June.