The French Open is the only Slam that begins play on a Sunday instead of Monday, so this Sunday featured a full day’s worth of play.

Gilles Simon (pictured here) took five sets to beat American, Wayne Odesnik, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Odesknik has actually made it further in the French than Simon has. In four prior attempts, Simon has never gotten past the 2nd round, and in 3 of the previous 4 years, Simon has lost in the 1st round. Odesnik, who was a wildcard last year, in a special deal between France and the US where France gave one American a wildcard (USTA picked Odesnik) for one wildcard given to a French player at the US Open.

Odesnik used the most of his wildcard and reached the third round where he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets.

This was a trap match for Simon. Simon has not played well this year and Roland Garros has not been kind to him. Odesnik was hitting his lefty forehands well. However, Simon came through with a key break in the fifth and rode it to victory. Perhaps this might be a good tournament for Simon to get back to the form he showed in the second half of last year.

Ivo Karlovic had a dubious distinction. He’s acknowledged as the biggest server in the game. However, his huge serve doesn’t always translate to wins. Today, Karlovic fired 55 aces against Lleyton Hewitt. Despite this, he lost in five sets to the tough Aussie: 6-7, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-3. Need less to say, tiebreaks and Karlovic are often synonymous.

Querrey had a tough opener, playing Ernests Gulbis. Gulbis hasn’t really had that much of a year, but he’s still a tough opponent. Querrey lost the opening set tiebreak and eventually lost in 4 sets. Querrey is having trouble breaking through to the next level. Right now, he seems relegated to the middling high ranks of 30 or 40. Ranked high enough to not have to qualify, but not high enough to get through a few rounds consistently.

Despite losses to Odesnik and Querrey, things weren’t all bad for Americans. Robert Kendrick won a five setter over Daniel Brands of Germany, 6-3 in the fifth. Kendrick had to win a monster 3rd set tiebreak, 13-11, to keep the match going.

Sunday wasn’t tough for everyone. The easy wins include: Cilic over Henrych (6-0, 6-4, 6-3), Golubev over Gremelmayr (6-3, 6-3, 6-2), Almagro over Callieri (6-4, 6-1, 6-3), Ferrer over Gil (6-2, 6-4, 6-4), and Verdasco over Serra (6-2, 6-1, 6-4).

Other than Montcourt, who had Yen-Tsun Lu retire after one set, the player that had the easiest opening round was Scot, Andy Murray. Although Murray is ranked 3, his play on clay leading up to the French has been spotty. His best performance was early on, with a semifinal loss to Rafael Nadal. He looked passive in his loss to del Potro in Madrid.

Today, Murray was matched against Juan Ignacio Chela. Chela was once in the top 20, ranked as high as 15. However, due to injury, he was out for a number of months. He is currently ranked 183.

You don’t expect a player ranked so low to bother Andy Murray, even if he used to be much tougher. However, Chela’s best surface is clay and Murray’s worst surface is clay. Even so, this was one of Murray’s better matches.

He played far more aggressive than he normally does, trying to set up for big forehands inside-out, trying to dictate play more than he had in previous clay events. Even when Chela was moving Murray around, Murray would often dig another shot out and elicit an error on Chela.

When Chela made the mistake of approaching the Murray forehand, Murray would flick a dipping crosscourt passing shot. He did this so often that commentator and former player and Murray coach, Brad Gilbert, pointed out that Murray always hits his forehand passes crosscourt.

Chris Fowler, whose actually a pretty good commentatory (does his homework, can watch the matches and say intelligent things), pointed out that it would be hard to cover that dipping shot.

Murray won handily, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. This was a lopsided win, but bodes well for getting through a few more rounds. Gilbert feels Murray has the easiest quarter (I think Federer does, but partly because Federer is so comfortable playing Blake and Roddick, the highest seeds in his quarter) and should go deep in the tournament. I don’t know if I agree, but certainly, he looked really sharp in his opening round. Like Fed and Djokovic, Murray is relying on his drop shot a great deal. We’ll see how much he uses it in this year’s tournament.

I think the danger player for Murray is Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. The two have played twice and split matches 1-1. However, the last time they faced each other was in 2006, before Murray made his big move up in 2008.

Tomorrow, Rafael Nadal will play Marcos Daniel of Brazil. Roger Federer will plays Spaniard, Alberto Martin. Andy Roddick and Fernando Gonzalez also play on Monday.

Enjoy the tennis!