Marin Cilic began his 12th tilt at the Roland Garros title by striking 47 winners, including 13 aces, on Tuesday.
The third-seeded Croatian, improved to 19-8 on the season, by beating James Duckworth of Australia 6-3, 7-5, 7-6(4) in a rain-interrupted two hours and 14 minutes.
“I was serving really good today,” said Cilic. “I believe I had quite a high percentage of first serve and was also winning points after my serve. [I experienced a] little bit of a loss of concentration at 5-4, when I was serving for the second set, and he came back. It was just a little bit difficult to get back straight at it. We didn't know when we were going back. We could have been waiting hour, hour and a half. But it went quickly.
“Overall, I felt good on the court. It was just slightly different than what we're used to, playing in the rain for more than hour and a half… My rhythm was good, [and I was] hitting from the back of the court well. It was, I would say, a little bit more difficult to return. He was serving well.”
Last year’s quarter-finalist will next challenge 6’5” Polish qualifier Hubert Hurkacz, who defeated American Tennys Sandgren 6-2, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in two hours and 11 minutes.
Cilic won the first three games of the pair’s first FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting, but came through a more competitive second set — which saw Duckworth break back for 5-5 — prior to a tense third set.
Duckworth, who underwent foot surgery in January, had been contesting his first tour-level match since the 2017 Australian Open.
Cilic has an 8-5 record on clay this year, including runs to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia semi-final (l. to A. Zverev) and Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters quarter-final (l. to Nishikori).
Elsewhere, Italian Thomas Fabbiano won the fifth set of a first-round encounter that was carried over from Monday to complete a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Matthew Ebden of Australia. He will now prepare to face Croatia’s Borna Coric.