'Rafael Nadal is very aggressive, even from his backhand wing,' Mats Wilander said

The 20-time Major champion Rafael Nadal is through to the Australian Open second round, beating Laslo Djere 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 in under two hours, playing aggressive tennis and avoiding extended rallies.

Struggling with a back injury for the last couple of weeks, Rafa made some changes in his service motion and tried to dictate the pace and fire attacking shots from both wings. The court is very fast in Melbourne this year, and Rafa doesn't have much time to run around his forehand, delivering impressive shotmaking from his backhand wing and looking good ahead of the second-round meeting with Michael Mmoh on Thursday night.

"Nadal played incredibly aggressively, and it was an excellent showing. His play has been extremely aggressive, and he was playing very quickly, something he has been trying to do lately in his career to try and shorten the points as much as possible. Rafa is hitting it harder on the backhand side than on the forehand, and part of that is that he wants to shorten points; the courts are quicker, so he doesn't have time to run around and hit forehands; he needs to hit flat backhands.

His past injury issues ahead of the Australian Open could come from the fact that he has to work on hard courts for a couple of months getting ready for Australia; that's the first thing. You would think he would be more injured during the clay-court season because he plays so many more matches; we know Nadal likes to play a lot and get his confidence.

Maybe when he trains, I can also see that he pushes himself harder because he needs that confidence and needs to be out there. We have seen him during tournaments hitting ball after ball after ball, and the other players don't do that - he works really hard, even during Majors," Mats Wilander said.