Novak Djokovic wasted a few opportunities but safely reached the third round of the French Open with a 7-5 6-3 6-4 victory against Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis today.
The world number one dropped serve twice when he seemed to be strolling towards a straightforward victory, his 50th at Roland Garros.
"It was a bit difficult but I'm happy I won in three sets," said Djokovic.
Darcis, the world number 161, fought back from a break down in the first and third sets as Djokovic seemed to lose focus.
The Serb raced to a 3-0 lead on Court Suzanne Lenglen only for Darcis to break back and level for 3-3 before he wasted a break point in the ninth game. Djokovic went on to take the set as the Belgian's backhand sailed long.
An early break put the top seed ahead in the second set, which he won comfortably. However, Djokovic, who hopes to win the only grand slam missing from his collection, let Darcis fight back from 2-0 down in the third.
But the Australian Open champion, a runner-up at Roland Garros last year, accelerated again and wrapped it up on his first match point.
Rafael Nadal chalked up a double century of grand slam match wins by putting Argentine challenger Facundo Bagnis firmly in his place with a 6-3 6-0 6-3 demolition job in the second round of the French Open today.
Playing in only his sixth grand slam match, Bagnis broke Nadal's serve in the opening game before taking a 2-0 lead.
But if the 99th-ranked Bagnis harboured any hopes of ending the fourth seed's bid for a record-extending 10th Roland Garros title, those dreams were brutally crushed as Nadal surrendered only four further games before wrapping up victory.
Nadal is one of only eight players in the history of men's tennis to reach the 200 grand slam win milestone.
Beaten in the quarter-finals last year by Novak Djokovic, Nadal has dropped just nine games in two rounds as he attempts to reclaim his title.
He will next play either Frenchman Nicolas Mahut or Marcel Granollers of Spain for a place in the fourth round.
Dangerman Dominic Thiem enhanced his growing reputation by reaching the third round for the first time with a 7-5 6-4 7-6(3) win over Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
The youngest player in the top 15, the 22-year-old Austrian has won more matches on clay this season than anyone else, and his 2016 victims on the surface include nine-times Roland Garros champion Nadal and 17-times grand slam winner Roger Federer.
Thiem could also be a potential banana skin for Nadal in Paris since the duo appear to be heading for a fourth-round showdown.
Before that happens he will have to overcome either Germany's Alexander Zverev or Stephane Robert of France.
But Thiem, who has won claycourt titles this season in Buenos Aires and Nice, can already take some comfort in becoming the first Austrian man to reach the third round since Juergen Melzer in 2010.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga provided some thrills on an otherwise dull day when he overturned a two-set deficit to reach the third round by beating Marcos Baghdatis 6-7(6) 3-6 6-3 6-2 6-2.
The French sixth seed got off to a shaky start but backed by the Philippe Chatrier Court's partisan crowd, played more aggressively to unsettle his Cypriot opponent.
Baghdatis, like Tsonga a former Australian Open runner-up, lost his composure as he failed to cope with the noisy crowd and gradually slipped out of contention.
Tsonga, looking to become the first French man to win Roland Garros since Yannick Noah in 1983, next faces Latvia's Ernests Gulbis.
