The first full day of matches in Paris had plenty of excitement and a few surprises to boot. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic each cruised against overmatched opponents without any trouble at all. There isn’t too much to learn from these matches, other than the fact that both are in form and unlikely to be beaten by anything other than an incredible performance.

Honor Roll:

Martin Klizan:  While opponent Kei Nishikori was injured, that should in no way detract from Klizan’s excellent performance. He has been playing very well these past few weeks and brought that form with him to Paris for a 7-6 6-1 6-2 upset. His groundstrokes were crisp and clean and his attacking tennis was flawless. This would have been a tight match even if Nishikori was at full fitness.

Dominic Thiem:  The youngster continues his rise up the tennis world, beating a very tricky Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4 7-6 6-2 without letting the occasion of this being his first Roland Garros match get to him. Thiem never faltered and played his tennis cleanly for the two hours needed to win this match. His next match against Nadal will be much tougher, but I have a feeling he will impress us, at least for a time.

Marin Cilic:  Facing a tricky clay-courter in Pablo Andujar. Cilic showed no nerves and never relented in taking his power game and blasting Andujar off the court. He hit an incredible 64 winners during a 6-0 6-3 7-6 victory, and he looks very dangerous moving forward, even though clay is not his favorite surface.

Lost Their Homework:

Stan Wawrinka:  What a difference a Grand Slam makes. After playing incredible tennis to win in Melbourne, he crashed out 6-4 5-7 6-2 6-0 in his first match in Paris. This is not to take anything away from Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who played a beautiful match all around, but Stan looked like he never figured out to play the match. He got frustrated and couldn’t control his groundstrokes, leading to an embarrassingly high unforced error count of 62.

Ernests Gulbis:  There were times where it felt like Gulbis didn’t produce a fully committed effort in his 4-6 6-4 7-5 6-1 win. Lukasz Kubot was playing all-out attacking tennis, to which Gulbis responded with relative passivity because he knew he should win the match anyway. Gulbis’ form was acceptable, but it felt like he never quite got invested in fighting to win the match.

Match of the Day:

Is there any other choice, really? Facundo Bagnis and Julien Benneteau played an absolute classic. Bagnis came out strong as Benneteau struggled, leading the Argentine to a quick two-set lead. The pair switched roles for the next two sets, with Bagnis playing poorly and Benneteau finding his form. This led us to a fifth set, with the Frenchman looking poised to complete the two-set comeback in front of his home crowd.

The fifth set, though, was a match of wills in which momentum played no role. Each player held his serve in an increasingly nerve-wracking fifth set. Eventually, at 16-16, Bagnis opened up three break points. Benneteau saved two with good serves but could not win the third, as Bagnis serving out the match for the 6-1 6-2 1-6 3-6 18-16 upset.