Day 3 Roundup: Nadal, Djokovic sail on, Bouchard ousted at Roland Garros

A highly expected quarterfinal encounter between defending champion Rafael Nadal and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic has came one step closer to be realized as the duo respectively made easy through to the second round at Roland Garros on Tuesday.

Nadal, bidding for a record 10th triumph at the French Open in 11 years, breezed past French youngster Quentin Halys 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 in the first round on the centeral court Philippe Chatrier.

The former world No. 1, seeded a humble sixth this year, needed only one hour and 50 minutes to beat the 18-year-old wild card entry, ranked 296th in the world.

"Quentin is the future. He is trying to hit winners from everywhere. That is the way tennis is going now," said Nadal on the court after the match.

The 14-time major winner wore a pair of tennis shoes with the number "9" stitched into the heels to mark his almost non-stop title collecting campaign since 2005. The only year that he failed to win at Rolland Garros was 2009 when he's bothered by injury.

"I'm here to play well and compete. That's my mentality and the goal is always the same," Nadal told a post-match press conference, amid which a group of kids showed a poster through the window saying that "the clay has only one king, and that's not Djoko. Vamos, Rafa."

And the Spaniard had his thumbs up to the window after being reminded by a journalist to look at it.

Top seed Djokovic, who's collected all other three Grand Slam titles but that of the French Open, overcame a second set scare to beat Finland's veteran Jarkko Nieminen 6-2, 7-5, 6-2.

The 28-year-old Serb's next opponent will be Gilles Muller of Luxembourg or Italian Paolo Lorenzi who were level at two sets apiece when it's too dark and the umpire had to call up an overnight suspension.

Grigor Dimitrov came out the latest highly seeded casaulty as the 10th seed Bulgarian was beaten 7-6 (7), 6-2, 6-3 by Jack Sock of the United States to suffer his second straight first-round exit in Paris.

In the women's play, top seed and world No. 1 Serena Williams claimed a quick victory of 6-2, 6-3 over Czech qualifier Andrea Hlavackova in just 59 minutes.

The 19-time major winner, who twice lifted the Suzanne Lenglen Cup in 2002 and 2013, plays German Anna-Lena Friedsam in the second round.

There's no good news for the sixth seed Eugenie Bouchard, however, as the Canadian, last year's semifinalist, crashed out by local sweetheart Kristina Mladenovic, 6-4, 6-4.

With Wang Qiang beaten by former champion Francesca Schiavone on Tuesday all four Chinese players have been stopped in the first round of the French Open.

Wang, ranked 102nd in the world, was dominant in the first set, broke the 2010 champion twice to win 6-3, but the 35-year-old Schiavone, who has slipped to 92nd, fought back to take the next two sets 6-3, 6-4 after two hours and nine minutes.

It was the Chinese player's first match at Roland Garros and at 23 she has learned it is too difficult to emulate compatriot Li Na's achievement at the red clay Grand Slam event.

"I was very exited and nervous," Wang said. "In China, I don't have any chance to play on clay. I just found it very different from playing on hard court."

Wang was the last Chinese player to exit at this year's tournament, following the suit of Peng Shuai, Zhuang Shuai and Zheng Saisai.

China will just be represented by doubles specialist Zheng Jie in the mixed doubles event and Xu Yifan, Zheng Saisai and Liang Chen in the women's doubles at Roland Garros in the following 10 days. Endi