Roddick survives

PARIS (AP): Andy Roddick's preparation for this French Open was hardly traditional. Or ideal, from a purely tennis perspective, anyway.

He skipped a clay-court event in Rome so he could celebrate his one-year wedding anniversary with his wife, Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model Brooklyn Decker.

He missed another tune-up tournament in Madrid, laid low with a stomach virus.

Scrambling to get set, Roddick played a couple of hastily arranged exhibition matches and practised a bunch at Roland Garros with fellow pro Mardy Fish, a pal since high school. If Roddick felt he needed more match time on his least favourite surface, he accumulated it in a hurry yesterday, digging himself out of a hole and coming back to beat Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-2, 4-6, 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the French Open's first round.

"It's kind of like when you miss an assignment in school and they give you a chance to get extra credit. I've been trying real hard to get extra credit ... and I definitely wasn't match-tough," the sixth-seeded Roddick said. "There was a lot of ugliness out there today. But at the end of it, I get to play again."

So does a group of other Americans: Roddick and Fish are among five US men into the second round, matching the largest contingent at this Grand Slam tournament since six made it in 1998.

Robby Ginepri knocked off 18th-seeded Sam Querrey 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4, 6-2 in an all-American match yesterday, while John Isner and Taylor Dent won Monday.

other winners

Roddick's was not the only successful return yesterday, when winners included four-time French Open champions Justine Henin and Rafael Nadal, as well as Maria Sharapova, who has won the other three major tournaments.

Playing at Roland Garros for the first time since 2007, Henin beat Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 6-4, 6-3 to run her winning streaks at her favourite event to 22 matches and 37 sets.

Henin won titles at Roland Garros in 2003 and 2005-07, before taking a 20-month hiatus from tennis. And while she said before the event that she does not consider herself the defending champion, her skills make her a serious contender for another trophy.

Upon returning, Henin said, she was "very nervous, which was normal. It's my tournament and I didn't know really how I was going to deal with my emotions."

When it comes to time away, she's got nothing on Kimiko Date Krumm, who entered the French Open for the first time since 1996. Yes, you read that correctly: 1996.

Date Krumm retired at the end of that season, then resumed playing in 2008 at her husband's urging and made quite a stir yesterday, stunning former No. 1 Dinara Safina 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 to become, at 39 years and seven months, the oldest woman to win a match at Roland Garros since Virginia Wade was 2 1/2 months older in 1985.

"If I lost, still, I'm very happy to be here," Date Krumm said.

She won despite a right calf injury that made her wonder if she would be able to play in the second round.

runner-up

Safina was the runner-up at the French Open each of the past two years, but she was undone by 17 double faults and the same inability to close out a match she's displayed in the past.

"I will have to swallow this loss and keep on moving," said Safina, younger sister of two-time major champion Marat Safin. "After rain, always sun comes."

Nadal also sought to look on the bright side after assessing his play as "really bad", while overwhelming the youngest player in the men's draw, 18-year-old French wild card Gianni Mina, 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.

A year ago, Nadal's 31-match French Open winning streak ended with a fourth-round upset against Robin Soderling, but he figures he is on his way to a new run, saying that he remembers having what he considered spotty starts in the first round each of the four years he went on to win the title.

"I know I have to refocus and calm down and move forward," Nadal said. "I think I will have no problems."