Milos Raonic will face Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International after they sealed comfortable victories on Thursday.

Raonic was given a first-round bye and the top seed started his season by brushing Diego Schwartzman aside, winning 6-3 6-2 to ensure he will face the 14-time grand slam champion, who has his former coach Carlos Moya in his corner.

The world number three from Canada, who recently added Richard Krajicek to his coaching team, fired down 12 aces and won 75 per cent of his first-service points to wrap up a straightforward success in just 69 minutes.

Raonic saved a break point in the first game of the match and got the solitary break of the opener to lead 4-2 before reeling off four games in a row in the second after being pegged back at 1-1 when he failed to hold.

Mischa Zverev was no match for the fit-again Nadal, who strolled to a 6-1 6-1 win in only 55 minutes to set up a meeting with last year's Wimbledon runner-up.

Nadal saved the two break points he faced in a commanding service display and broke five times to ease into the last eight.

Dominic Thiem and Grigor Dimitrov will be quarter-final opponents after also claiming straight-sets wins over Sam Groth and Nicolas Mahut respectively