PARIS — Defending champion Stan Wawrinka got off to a shaky start at the French Open, surviving five tough sets to beat Lukas Rosol 4-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 Monday in the first round.
Struggling against his Czech opponent on Court Philippe Chatrier, Wawrinka was at risk of becoming the first defending champion ever to lose in the first round at Roland Garros.
Ranked 59th, Rosol had never beaten Wawrinka — and had taken only two sets off him — in four previous encounters. But he took the match against the third-seeded Swiss player to five sets with frequent forays to the net, a broad array of accurate strokes and an abundance of confidence.
“He was going for his shots all the time, not missing much,” Wawrinka said.
Rain delayed the start by more than 2½ hours. Rosol broke Wawrinka in the fifth game of the first set with a drop shot that died on the damp red clay.
With the crowd wrapped in heavy coats against the unusually chill May weather, Wawrinka steadied himself in the second set, but the shift in momentum was brief. Rosol came out for the third set with a fresh shirt and jumped out to 3-0 lead. He had a break point for 4-0 but failed to convert.
Once Wawrinka saved a pair of break points in the fourth set, the match shifted back to the defending champion. He broke Rosol to love in the eighth game.
In the final set, a backhand passing shot down the line earned a roar from the crowd and a break point that Wawrinka converted for a 2-1 lead and, eventually, the match.
Elsewhere, finishing a match stopped by rain on Sunday night, fifth-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan completed a 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 victory over Simone Bolelli of Italy. In the women’s draw, fourth-seeded Garbine Muguruza of Spain rebounded from losing the first against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova to beat the Slovakian 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2009 French Open champion, advanced to the second round with a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Yaroslava Shvedova, in another match played over two days because of the rain that played havoc with the schedule.
Despite his poor record against top 10 players, with just 3 wins and 23 losses before taking on Wawrinka, Rosol also has the capacity to surprise: He beat then top-ranked Rafael Nadal in the second round at Wimbledon in 2012.
But with English actor Tim Roth (“Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction”) in the crowd, the Czech couldn’t quite script a Hollywood ending for himself in Paris. Wawrinka said he felt Rosol tire as the match went on, losing speed and giving the Swiss player more time to make his shots.
Wawrinka preferred to see the positive — that he dug himself out of the hole — than dwell on the negatives of his lackluster performance in what he described as cold, heavy and slow conditions on court.
“A good victory, a good win,” he said, although he conceded that “it’s never the best to start with a five-set match.”
Wawrinka next plays Taro Daniel of Japan. Ranked 93rd, Daniel advanced when Martin Klizan of Slovakia retired with an injury while trailing 3-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 3-0 in their first-round match.
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