Easy for Murray, Hewitt upsets Karlovic

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Paris: Apart from some jitters in his first service game, Andy Murray had little trouble on Sunday in his opening match at the French Open and beat Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 6-2 6-2 6-1.

Murray, who has reached only one clay-court semi-final in his career, was broken in the first game of the match, but he then dominated Chela with 55 winners and 10 aces to advance to the second round.

Defending women’s champion Ana Ivanovic struggled on the important points in the opening match before beating Sara Errani of Italy 7-6 (3) 6-3.

The eighth-seeded Serb converted only five of the 20 break points she earned against her opponent. Errani broke three times and even served for the first set at 5-4. “I knew I had to work hard for my points today, and I’m very happy I did that,” Ivanovic said. “And I kept my composure.”

Murray looked rusty early in his match, but he soon began to hit some hard groundstrokes and move Chela around the court. While Murray only had four fewer unforced errors — 19 to Chela’s 23 — the Briton had 41 more winners.

Ivo Karlovic set a tour-level record for aces with 55 in his 6-7 (1) 6-7 (4) 7-6 (4) 6-4 6-3 loss to Lleyton Hewitt. The 26th-seeded Karlovic, who has lost in the first round in 14 of his 24 Grand Slam appearances, broke the previous record of 51, which he shared with Joachim Johansson.

Marat Safin, another of the eight former Grand Slam singles champions in the men’s field, beat Alexandre Sidorenko of France 6-4 6-4 6-4.

Results (seeds): Lleyton Hewitt bt Ivo Karlovic (26) 6-7 (1) 6-7 (4) 7-6 (4) 6-4 6-3; Marat Safin (20) bt Alexandre Sidorenko 6-4 6-4 6-4; Marin Cilic (13) bt Jan Hernych 6-0 6-4 6-3; Fernando Verdasco (8) bt Florent Serra 6-2 6-1 6-4; Nicolas Almagro (31) bt Agustin Calleri 6-4 6-1 6-3; Radek Stepanek (18) bt Gaston Gaudio 6-3 6-4 6-1; David Ferrer (14) bt Frederico Gil 6-2 6-4 6-4, Andy Murray (3) bt Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 6-2, 6-1; Gilles Simon (7) bt Wayne Odesnik 3-6 7-5 6-2 4-6 6-3