It’s hard to believe, but over the 6 years that Nadal has played the French Open, he’s never played a 5-setter.  They don’t call Nadal the king of clay for nothing.  He has played two French Opens without dropping a set.

It’s perhaps not surprising that John Isner might be the kind of guy that could push Isner.  For a guy like Isner, with a huge serve, the formula was simple.  Hold your serve.  Get into a tiebreak.  Hope to win a tiebreak.  Nadal took the first set 6-4, but the second set went to a tiebreak, with each player breaking serve once (and for Isner, it would be his only service break the entire match).  The third set had no breaks of serve and Isner took the third set tiebreak easily too.

All of a sudden, Nadal was going to have to win in 5 sets.  And yet, there was a sense that Nadal would do this.  He would get better reads on Isner’s serve.  There’s no server on tour whose first and second serve are so huge that neither can be touched so once you miss a few first serves, Nadal gets a shot at your serve.   And beyond that Isner would get a little tired and his first serve would start to lose pace.

Nadal had two breaks in the fourth set to win it easily 6-2.  In the fifth set, Isner held his first serve, but Nadal had a great return game on his next serve.  With the break, Isner knew he had to break to stay even.  While he had some chances, a few sloppy shots and a few big shots from Nadal to expose Isner’s lack of foot speed resulted in Nadal winning the match, 6-4 in the fifth.

In a surprise upset, Sam Querrey, who has played indifferently all year, managed to upset Philipp Kohlschreiber in four sets.

Andy Murray was having some trouble dealing with qualifier Eric Prodon.  He opened up with a break and was threatening a second break, but couldn’t secure the break.  Prodon then broke back to even the match before Murray broke again.  Prodon used a good one-handed topspin backhand and a sneaky drop shot to befuddle Murray.  But as the match wore on, Prodon’s fitness seemed suspect and Murray had an easier time beating Prodon.

Veterans did well.  Melzer beat Beck in three sets.  Clement upset Volandri in four sets showing the aging Frenchman still has what it takes to win.  Veteran Ivan Ljubicic won in straight sets over Somdev Devvarman.  Robin Haase who pushed Nadal to 5 sets at Wimbledon needed only 3 sets to beat fellow Spaniard, Daniel Gimeno-Traver.

Not all veterans had success.  Rainer Scheuttler lost to Alex Dolgopolov in straight sets.

Lukasz Kubot had the biggest upset of the day beating Nicolas Almagro in five sets.  Almagro won the first two sets, but Kubot took the next two sets in tiebreaks and then took the fifth set.

Three other Americans did not get past the first round.  Ryan Sweeting lost in four sets to Haider-Maurer of Austria.  Smyzcek lost in straight sets to Chela.  Soderling won in 4 sets over Ryan Harrison.

Mayer beat Kunitsyn in four sets and still plays in good form.