If you quickly catch the score in the papers or saw it on some sports website such as Scorum you would probably be slightly shocked to see Nadal loose 2 sets to 1 tonight in the Semi Final of the Abu Dhabi Mubadala Exhibition Tournament. I surely wasn't as I was watching the game, though I was disappointed a little. But his loss will mask for many the truth about tonight's match in what was a great display by the French Open champion. There were many positive signs of not only Nadal looking at his best but also more dangerous than ever before with potent shot making off both his fore and back wing. If he keeps the sort of level up he showed in the first set and at points in the second and third, he's going to be really hard to stop in 2019.

It was clear even as he won the first set 6-4 that this match could easily swing the other way as Nadal was hitting winners off the first and second return shot with little care. While at times it may have seemed a little wild you could tell Nadal was not going to play his usual style against Anderson tonight, he was here for a little work out before Brisbane in a few days time. I wouldn't say he was lacking match fitness, actually I rarely saw a bead of sweat drip off his forehead (usually there's buckets full!) but he wasn't hustling for any balls and chasing down semi-winnable points yet he was still in contention all the way with a player of the quality of Anderson to the very end.

On the opposite side of the court you had Anderson chasing every point down like a dog! You could say he looked a bit foolish while Nadal was clearly not bothered about going to war with Anderson at the back of the court but then again perhaps the South African wanted to give the fans a good game to watch. Nadal was maybe at 50% of his potential and exertion tonight, whilst Anderson was at 100% in all departments. I guess from a betting or prediction point of view this was a bit disappointing to see, yet being in the know of Nadal's fitness and intentions going into this match wasn't so obvious. If Rafa was in the mood he would have bull-dosed Anderson off court pronto.

Adding to the fact that Nadal wasn't here to win an exhibition match Anderson was in typical form and managed to reign down countless aces to get him out of trouble in the second and third set, this was certainly a match that didn't reveal the real truth on paper.

Leaving aside the fact that Nadal intentionally took his foot of the gas in the second set and allowed a lot of balls to go sailing by purposely, some of his returns were unbelievable which was rather exciting to watch. He opted to flatten the ball out and hit incredibly deep leaving Anderson helpless at times trying to pluck a return back into play. The Spaniard's serving also looked strong, in fact as strong as I have ever seen Nadal serve, his serves were more like arrows than catapults rendering Anderson useless at times.

After the match Nadal had a very calm and chilled look about him, a man who didn't want to go toe to toe with Anderson for too long but most likely wanted to conserve his energy for his first competitive tournament coming up in a few days time in the Australia - the Brisbane ATP.

If this was Nadal at 50% tonight, Mr Novak (who won his match comfortably against Khachanov) better watch his back because this bull is about to get moving and once he charges there ain't nothing that's going to stop him in 2019!

I'm calling this early after watching Nadal tonight, he's my favourite pick to win both the Brisbane ATP and the more highly contested Australian Open ahead of Federer and Djokovic if he remains injury free which I presume he will do.