Eighth seed Borna Coric, working under the guidance of coach Miles Maclagan for the past month, opened his second appearance at the Aircel Chennai Open with a 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-4 win over 2009 and 2014 semi-finalist Marcel Granollers in just over two-and-a-half hours on Monday.

Despite hitting 17 aces, 2012 semi-finalist Nicolas Almagro could not overcome Croatian qualifier Ante Pavic in a 3-6, 7-5, 7-6(1) loss. John Millman battled past Evgeny Donskoy 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-6(6).

Rafael Nadal has officially turned the page on 2015. Only days into the New Year, he no longer wishes to look back on a year in which he often fell short of his historically high expectations.

“I’m a little bit tired of talking every day about 2015,” he told reporters in Doha, where he’s the No. 2 seed at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. “We’re in 2016 already, no? We’ve talked enough about 2015. I’ve talked enough about all the things that happened. I’ve been very open talking about all the things that went on during the year. But we’re in 2016, and 2015 is past.”

Nadal, who will open 2016 against fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta on Tuesday, finished inside the Top 5 in the Emirates ATP Rankings for the 11^th straight year. But for the first time in more than a decade, he came up empty at the majors and failed to add to his record total of 27 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles.

“We’re not talking about all the defeats of last year, because that’s past,” Nadal underlined. “What really means something is what’s going on tomorrow. That is the first match for me of the year, and I’m motivated for that. The rest of the things are past experiences for your life: good experiences, bad experiences. I feel lucky that most of the experiences have been very positive.”

The way the left-hander closed out the year — following his stunning upset loss to Italy’s Fabio Fognini at the US Open, he went 16-5 with semi-final showings at the Shanghai Rolex Masters and Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, and finals in both Beijing and Basel — has given him confidence and then some as he looks ahead.

“The expectations are the normal ones, positive ones, because I feel that I finished the past season playing well and I feel that I am playing well again,” he said. “It’s obvious that I feel more confident this year. I finished in a very high position in the rankings. And I finished it playing well, no? This year is another year.”

The off-season, as Nadal explained, was a busy one for the 29-year-old and his uncle/coach, Toni Nadal.

“We worked hard. We worked harder than usual because my physical condition allows me to do it, and that’s important for me,” he said. “I feel that I worked well. Didn’t stop much this year. All my life I worked with the highest intensity possible, but we worked a little bit different. We tried to find different positions on the court, tried to play more inside and we worked a lot on the return, too. We feel that we needed a few things that are different than other years, but at the same time without losing the character of my game.”

Tuesday’s opening match at Pat Rafter Arena saw No. 6 seed David Goffin record his first win of 2016, a 6-4, 6-4 decision over Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci at the Brisbane International.

The Belgian surrendered just two points on his first serve (15 for 17) in taking the 40-minute opening set, breaking the left-handed Bellucci at 2-2 to move out in front.

In just their third career FedEx ATP Head2Head encounter (Goffin now leads 2-1), the foes exchanged breaks to open the second set. But Goffin would score his third break of the match at 2-all and consolidate for a 4-2 advantage. He would go on to close out the match in one hour and 22 minutes.

Goffin, 25, overcame four double faults to win 76 per cent (23 of 30) of his first-serve points. He converted three of 10 break-point opportunities. Bellucci finished with seven aces in the losing effort.

In 2015, Goffin became the highest-ranked Belgian in the history of year-end Emirates ATP Rankings at No. 16. He also led Belgium to its first Davis Cup final since 1904 (l. to Great Britain).

Also advancing on Tuesday in Brisbane was Serbia’s Viktor Troicki, a 7-6(3), 6-1 winner over American Steve Johnson in one hour and 10 minutes. Austrian Dominic Thiem overcame a 14-ace performance from home-country favorite James Duckworth, storming back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-3. Thiem converted three of nine break points in the one-hour and 53-minute comeback.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic required just 51 minutes for his first match win of 2016.

Djokovic, who has finished year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings for four of the past five years, cruised past qualifier Dustin Brown 6-2, 6-2 on Monday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open. 

“It’s been six weeks since I played the last match, so I was very excited to go back to the court and compete and see how I go,” said Djokovic. “Obviously you never know how you’re going to start from the blocks. You can do your best to prepare yourself well, which I did. I think I used the off season very well to train to get my body in the right shape, and I think it was a very good start.”

The Serbian is looking to capture his 60th tour-level title this week at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament. Since a loss to Ivo Karlovic last year in the Doha quarter-finals, he has reached 15 straight finals (11-4).

“I think the biggest challenge is, as it is in any of the previous years for me, is to really be consistent with my success throughout the year, try to stay healthy and try to maintain the high level of performance,” he said. “That’s what I try to focus my mind on.

“If I start thinking too much about certain tournaments, it can present a kind of a distraction to me so you try not to do that. I try to actually be as much as I can in the present and work my way through and effect whatever I can effect. That’s really working on my game, training myself to be strong and to play confident tennis. And I know as a consequence to that, the results will be positive, I’m hoping, obviously.”

Fifth seed Feliciano Lopez bowed out in his first-round match, falling to fellow Spaniard Daniel Munoz de la Nava 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 in two hours and 25 minutes. Lopez, who fired 24 aces, managed to convert just one of his nine break point chances. 

World No. 75 Munoz de la Nava was playing his first tour-level match since March 2014. He next meets qualifier Kyle Edmund, currently No. 102, who struck seven aces in a 6-2, 6-3 victory over No. 43-ranked Martin Klizan.

Earlier in the day, seventh seed Jeremy Chardy lost just seven of his service points for a 6-1, 6-1 rout of Mubarak Shannan Zayid in 46 minutes.