French Open:Andy Murray poured cold water over Richard Gasquet's French Open return, recovering from a two-set grilling to storm into the second round at Roland Garros as the day's headline act lived up to the hype.
Just as he did at Wimbledon two years ago when he triumphed from two sets down, fourth seed Murray weathered Gasquet's storm and surged back to win 4-6 6-7 6-4 6-2 6-1 in just over four hours in the cauldron of Suzanne Lenglen Court.
Gasquet missed his home slam in 2008 through injury and last year because of a doping ban that was later rescinded but the former world number seven arrived here with high hopes after winning the warm-up event in Nice last week.
The 23-year-old was at his majestic best as he built a two-set lead with some stupendous shot-making but Murray, a quarter-finalist here last year, hung in and the match quickly turned in his favour as a tiring Gasquet ran out of steam.
Roger Federer made a confident start to the defence of his title with a 6-4 6-1 6-2 win over Australian Peter Luczak. The world number one gradually found his stride on centre court where panama hats and caps blossomed in the stands and shoulders went bare as temperatures nudged 30 degrees.
Federer bided his time in the first set and did not really push Luczak until the 10th game, when the Australian was serving at 4-5.
The top seed showed his annoyance when Luczak's serve was called in on his first set point but he did not have long to wait and an untimely double fault from his opponent handed Federer the advantage.
Luczak, who has spent most of his 10-year career outside the top 100 and had tested Rafael Nadal in the first round of the Australian Open, was broken again in the fourth game of the second set in Paris.
Federer followed that up with another break as he cruised into a two-set lead. It was merely a matter of time in the third set and the world number one reeled off four games in a row from 2-2 to seal victory.
Tomas Berdych, the 15th seed, was also a straight-sets winner. The Czech, who made the final in Miami earlier this season, did not have to face a break point as he beat Chile's Jorge Aguilar 7-6 (9/7) 6-3 6-1.
Feliciano Lopez, never at his best on clay, was one seed to fall, however. The Spaniard, seeded 27, went down in straight sets to Julian Reister, the German qualifier who ended Conor Niland's hopes of competing in the main draw.
Lopez was followed by four-time quarter-finalist and former world number five Tommy Robredo, the 21st seed crushed 6-4 6-4 6-3 by Viktor Troicki.
A hat-trick of Spanish shocks was avoided when 19th seed Nicolas Almagro came from two sets to one down to beat Robin Haase 6-4 3-6 4-6 7-6 (7/3) 6-4.
Novak Djokovic admitted to a little bit of ring-rust after surviving a second-set wobble to record a four-set victory over Evgeny Korolev. The third seed and former Australian Open champion won 6-1 3-6 6-1 6-3 on Suzanne Lenglen Court to book a meeting with Kei Nishikori.
Djokovic looked like steamrollering Korolev after racing to a set and a break lead. But the Serbian lost six of the next seven games as his opponent — a cousin of Anna Kournikova — went for broke, especially on his forehand.
That was as good as it got for the world number 73 as Djokovic regained his stranglehold.
Otherwise, the day belonged to Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko, who finally saw off American Michael Yani in a match carried over from yesterday.
At four hours and 56 minutes, the contest was the joint-longest in the Open era at Roland Garros, Lacko winning 4-6 7-6 (7/5) 7-6 (7/4) 6-7 (5/7) 12-10 to set up a clash with 11th seed Mikhail Youzhny.
Gael Monfils, the 13th seed, kept the home fans happy with a four-sets win over Dieter Kindlmann, the German doing well to go down 6-3 7-5 6-7 (5/7) 6-2 after being called up this morning as a ‘lucky loser’ following the withdrawal of Florian Mayer.
Twelfth seed Fernando Gonzalez beat Brazil’s Thiago Alves 6-2 4-6 6-4 6-4 and Victor Hanescu (31) saw off Oscar Hernandez 6-1 1-6 6-4 6-3.
The rest of the seeds all progressed in straight sets. Ivan Ljubicic (14) shook off Yen-Hsun Lu, Tomas Berdych (15) beat Jorge Aguilar, John Isner (17) eased past Andrey Golubev, Stanislas Wawrinka (20) knocked out Jan Hajek, Thomaz Bellucci ended the hopes of Michael Llodra while Marcos Baghdatis (25) sent home Jesse Witten.