Third seed Carlos Alcaraz breezed into the second round at the French Open on Sunday with a straight sets win over JJ Wolf from the United States.
Alcaraz skipped the Italian Open in Rome to nurse a muscle strain in his right forearm and he wore strapping over the affected area during his match on centre court with the world number 107.
Showing no evident signs of discomfort, the 2023 semi-finalist raced through the opener 6-1. Wolf was equally submerged in the second set. The 21-year-old Spaniard claimed that 6-2 to take control of the encounter.
With rain forecast, the roof over the centre court was closed for the third set. But the move only brought different acoustics to the encounter as the downpour pounded the roof and Alcaraz copied the elements.
Alcaraz secured a double break to lead 4-1 and he got the next two games to complete his competitive return to the courts since 1 May in one hour and 51 minutes.
Early disappointment for France
"I would have liked to play more matches," Alcaraz told on-court interviewer Mats Wilander.
"But I don't think I need many matches to get back to my level. It's been a difficult month," he added.
"I love competing and playing tennis and staying away from that is difficult for me. But I've done everything to be ready to be here at Roland Garros."
Elsewhere in the bottom half of the men's draw, tenth seed Grigor Dimitrov enjoyed a straight sets win over the American Aleksandar Kovacevic while sixth seed Andrey Rublev disposed of Taro Daniel in four sets.
There was disappointment for the partisans as the male French number one Ugo Humbert went down in four sets to the unseeded Italian Lorenzo Sonego.
"He's really good on clay," said Humbert who was seeded 17th. "His match was really very solid. But then my level was not as good as I expected, and I thought, well, it's not enough to go to the second round."
Osaka's steady nerves
In the top half of the women's draw, ninth seed Jelena Ostapenko moved into the second round. The 2017 champion beat the unseeded Romanian Jaqueline Cristian 6-4, 7-5.
Former world number one Naomi Osaka also reached the second round.
After easing through the first set against Lucia Bronzetti 6-1, Osaka played a couple of sloppy forehands towards the end of the second to lose her service and give the Italian the set 6-4.
After surging into a 4-0 lead in the decider, Osaka was reeled in to 4-4. She managed to hold her nerve to take the final set 7-5.
"It really was like a roller coaster," said Osaka. "I felt like I was extremely focused in the first set and maybe I let it go a little bit, and then I kind of came back in the third but then I let it go a little bit and then I just got really tight from there.
"I'm really glad I was able to regroup and win."
