Novak Djokovic got away to a 6-1, 6-4 winning start to the clay season on Tuesday, with the locally based world No. 1 pleased with a second-round defeat of Albert Ramos-Vinolas.
Djokovic, who lives a few hundred meters from Court Central at the seaside Country Club, was happy to bring home the straight-set win in less than 90 minutes.
“For a first match on clay, it was pretty good,” the winner of back-to-back hardcourt Masters 1000 titles in the US said.
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“The fact that I’m playing at home [helps]. I practice in this club over the course of 12 months, hard courts, clay courts, I know people who are doing the courts, I’m friends with them,” he said.
“It really is a different and very special feeling. So I’m trying to enjoy it and see how far I can go,” he added.
Djokovic is playing for the 142nd week at the ATP No. 1 ranking, putting him one week ahead of Rafael Nadal on the top honor.
Monte Carlo second seed Roger Federer leads that statistical category with the all-time best of 302 weeks in the top spot.
Djokovic is also bidding to become the first player to win the opening three ATP Masters 1000 tournaments of the season after claiming Indian Wells and Miami honors.
Frenchmen Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils, Gilles Simon, Jeremy Chardy and Lucas Pouille moved into the second round, as a pair of compatriots lined up challenges against leading seeds.
No. 11 Tsonga beat Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4, 6-4, while No. 14 Monfils had to overcome three breaks in the last four games of his contest before securing safe passage into the second round with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 defeat of Russian Andrey Kuznetsov.
Tenth seed Simon defeated Monaco’s Benjamin Balleret 6-4, 6-2.
The hardest work on the clay looks to be awaiting an unheralded French pair at the event, which kick-starts the six-week run to Roland Garros.
Chardy defeated Diego Schwartzman 7-5, 6-2 to book a spot opposite Federer, as the Swiss begins the quest for a first career trophy at the venue where he finished runner-up a year ago to Stan Wawrinka.
Pouille, ranked 108, will also have his work cut out as he plays eight-time champion Nadal. The French wild card beat Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-4.
Nadal is desperate to maintain his title as king of clay and start to turn around what for the Spaniard has been a horrible showing so far this year.
Nadal exited early at both of last month’s hardcourt events in the US and spent a fortnight on clay in his native Mallorca trying to rediscover his feel for his preferred surface.
Monfils, who has never been past the second round at the tournament since first playing here a decade ago, had to battle through a tough opening encounter with Kuznetsov, whom he beat in Marseille two months ago.
“There were ups and downs, I was not monstrously confident,” said Monfils, who was injured last month in the US. “I had trouble finding the right timing and moving on the surface.
Ninth seed Grigor Dimitrov held off Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, saving 15 of 17 break points; Serb Viktor Troicki defeated Casablanca champion Martin Klizan 7-6 (7/5), 5-7, 6-2.
France’s Adrian Mannarino fell to Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-0 as another Spaniard, Tommy Robredo, seeded 16th, beat Italy’s Andreas Seppi 6-3, 1-6, 6-4.
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