The pandemic has already impacted the 2021 calendar, delaying the Australian Open and forcing the Indian Wells tournament in California -- the traditional lead-in to the Miami Open -- out of its usual slot in March.
The 34-year-old was playing his first tournament of the year after back tightness, following a stint in Australian quarantine, kept him out of the ATP Cup team competition.
After being heckled by a loud-mouthed fan in his previous round, Nadal enjoyed an incident-free evening in an empty Rod Laver Arena to reach the round of 16 at a Grand Slam for the 49th time in his career.
Nadal won the opening six points of the match, but Norrie was not intimidated in his first meeting with the Spaniard and claimed the first break of the match to lead 3-2.
Nadal is looking to edge ahead of Roger Federer who also has 20 Slam titles to his name, with the injured Swiss not playing in Melbourne. He plans to return to the ATP Tour at Doha next month.
"It's tough to say because it can both be negative and positive," said the Russian, whose best Slam performance so far was making the final of the 2019 US Open.
The second seed, looking to extend his record to 13 titles at Roland Garros and hoping to match Roger Federer's record of 20 men's Grand Slam singles titles.
The scoreline is because I did a lot of good things, I went to the net more often, I was more aggressive.