Milos Raonic begins French Open with easy win
Defending champ Wawrinka avoids massive upset; Murray in danger as darkness falls
Canada's Milos Raonic easily won his first-round match at the French Open on Monday, defeating Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic in straight sets.
In a contest that was delayed a day by rain in Paris, the eighth-seeded Raonic fired 10 aces in his 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (5) victory over Tipsarevic, who is ranked 680th in the world.
"I was happy I was quite efficient on court," Raonic told reporters after the match. "I was able to move on and give myself something to prepare for in the next match, and to be better."
Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., will meet another unseeded player in the next round — Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, who beat Mikhail Kukushkin in four sets.
Raonic and Mannarino have never faced each other on the ATP Tour.
Raonic's best showing at Roland Garros was his quarter-final appearance two years ago. He missed last year's tournament while recovering from foot surgery.
The Canadian has continued to deal with nagging injuries this season, including an torn adductor muscle, but he said he's in good health as he competes in the second Grand Slam of the season.
"I'm in good shape," said Raonic, who matched his career best at a major by reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open in January. "I'm physically strong. No nagging issues to start the tournament, which is nice."
Wawrinka avoids dubious distinction
Stan Wawrinka narrowly avoided becoming the first defending champion to lose in the first round of the French Open, coming back to edge 59th-ranked Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
On a day that started with a rain delay of more than 2½ hours, the third-seeded Wawrinka was out of sorts for most of the match on a gray, chilly afternoon, winding up with 46 unforced errors, 17 on his preferred backhand wing.
But after trailing 2-1 in sets, Wawrinka took the last two to win what shaped up beforehand as a mismatch in his favour.
Wawrinka is a two-time Grand Slam title winner, while Rosol never has been past the third round at a major tournament.
Plus, Wawrinka had won all four previous matches between the two, including Friday on red clay at Geneva.
Murray in danger
Something similar transpired several hours later, when No. 2 Andy Murray faced an even greater deficit, dropping the first two sets against 128th-ranked qualifier Radek Stepanek, who at 37 is the oldest man in the field. Their match didn't finish, though, suspended until Tuesday because of darkness.
After the net-charging Stepanek raced to a 6-3, 6-3 lead, his legs began to falter, and Murray started to work his way back into the match.
The two-time major champion took the third set 6-0, and was up a break at 4-2 in the fourth when they stopped. As dusk began to arrive — there are no artificial lights at Roland Garros — Murray accused his opponent of gamesmanship, complaining to the chair umpire that Stepanek was trying to delay the proceedings.
"How many things can he do to slow the play down?" Murray said after Stepanek headed to the locker room before the third set, adding: "Keep an eye on how long this toilet break is."
After returning to the court, Stepanek changed shirts, drawing a warning for wasting time.
If he was hoping to force the match to a second day, it worked, as Stepanek can rest and regroup before resuming his bid to make Murray the tournament's first No. 2 seed to bow out in the first round since Pete Sampras in 2000.
Cilic upset by qualifier
Former U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic lost to a player 156 spots below him in the rankings.
The tenth seed from Croatia lost 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the first round to Marco Trungelliti, a 26-year-old Argentinian who made the French Open main draw through its qualifying tournament.
Playing in only his second major tournament and his first time at Roland Garros, Trungelliti is ranked 166. He made the Australian Open second round in January.
Cilic, the U.S. Open champion in 2014, also lost in the first round of his first French Open in 2007 and in 2011. He has made the last 16 in Paris three times.
Vinci falls
On the women's side, Roberta Vinci, the Italian who derailed Serena Williams's hopes of a rare calendar-year Grand Slam of major titles in 2015, went out in the first round.
Vinci, seeded seventh, became the highest-ranked woman to fall so far when she lost 6-1, 6-3 to unseeded Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine.
Vinci beat Williams in the U.S. Open semifinals last year, stopping the American from winning the last major she needed to complete the Grand Slam collection of all four in the same year.
Elsewhere, fourth-seeded Garbine Muguruza recovered after losing the first set and advanced to the second round.
The two-time quarter-finalist from Spain struggled early but rallied to beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
With files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press