After a disappointing March campaign, Stanislas Wawrinka needed to recapture the imposing form that carried him to the Australian Open title in January.  Wawrinka made a strong start in that direction by dismantling Marin Cilic in Monte Carlo for the loss of just two games. 

Although clay is Cilic's least effective surface, he had won two titles in 2014 while playing some of his most convincing tennis in years.  Wawrinka's 46-minute rout thus came as a slight surprise.  The Australian Open champion lost only six service points and never faced a break point, while he won all but three of the points on Cilic's second serve.  This statistic proved crucial because the Croat's first-serve percentage dipped below 50%, preventing him from taking command of rallies at the outset as he prefers.

World No. 1 Rafael Nadal also advanced comfortably in his Monte Carlo opener.  After a tight first set against qualifier Teymuraz Gabasvhili, Nadal asserted his dominance in the second set.  He converted all five of the break points that he earned, mitigating an uneven performance on serve.  Dropping serve twice, Nadal struggled to win second-serve points in a trend that he must improve against elite foes. 

Nadal's archrival, Roger Federer, had taken a wildcard into Monte Carlo after initially leaving the tournament off his schedule.  Federer lost only three games to Radek Stepanek, who had won a set from him earlier this year.  Like Cilic, Stepanek counts clay as his least effective surface.  He lasted just 52 minutes against the efficient Federer, who echoed Nadal by converting all four of his break-point opportunities.

Not every seed advanced so smoothly in Monte Carlo on Wednesday, however.  Three lower seeds dropped the first set before rallying for three-set comebacks.  Two of those matches produced bizarre scorelines.  While Tommy Robredo lost one total game in the second and third sets against Julien Benneteau, Milos Raonic yielded just three games in the second and third sets against Yen-Hsun Lu.  In those whiplash-inducing encounters, the first set may have served as a wake-up call for players clearly superior to their opponents.  By contrast, Grigor Dimitrov gradually wrested away control of his match with Albert Ramos, downing the Spanish clay specialist in a tight battle.

Only one seed, Alexandr Dolgopolov, failed to survive his match on Wednesday.  Dolgopolov was not initially seeded when the 16-seed draw was made, however, and simply slotted into the “17th seed” position when Richard Gasquet withdrew from the tournament.  He fell to last week's Casablanca champion, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, in a result that may have owed something to their relative comfort levels on the surface.