French Open: Djokovic puts progress made to lessons learned

PARIS- Third seed Novak Djokovic believes his tough baptism at this year's French Open was the reason why he was able to cruise through his second-round match at Roland Garros on Wednesday.
The Serbian put in a below-par display in beating Denis Gremelmayr in four sets in his opening match but he upped his game considerably against Spain's Miguel Angel Lopez Jaen.
His 80-minute, 6-1 6-1 6-3 thrashing of the Spaniard demonstrated why he has been tipped to challenge the likes of champion Rafael Nadal and world number one Roger Federer for the title this year.
The 21-year-old became the first player through to the third round in the men's draw on Wednesday and will face either Wayne Odesnik or Hyung-Taik Lee next.
And he reckons his battle against Gremelmayr earlier in the week could have been a blessing in disguise.
"I'm a perfectionist in life," the Australian Open champion said.
"I like everything to go the best way possible and sometimes it cannot be that way in the first round.
"I didn't play my best tennis and I was struggling but it was good in some ways to have the longer match so you can get used to the conditions, the balls and try to find yourself.
"Today I had something totally opposite. I had an opponent who made a lot of unforced errors. I juts played as much as I needed to.
"It's always good to have easy matches in tournaments like these. If you have the chance to play an easy, short match to save energy for the rest of the tournament, that's great."
Wednesday saw the completion of the first-round schedule that had been behind owing to the constant rain in the French capital for past two days.
Two seeded players bit the dust, but for different reasons.
The big-serving Ivo Karlovic, the 20th seed, lost in five sets to Colombia's Alejandro Falla, while 23rd seed Juan Carlos Ferrero was forced to quit midway through his match with Brazilian Marcos Daniel.
The Spaniard, the winner here in 2003, had won the opening set on a tie-break and was level at 2-2 in the second when he withdrew with a leg injury.
"I've suffered this pain for quite a while but it's a bit of a strange problem because scans and x-rays don't show anything," said Ferrero, who started feeling the injury towards the end of first set.
"At the moment, I don't exactly know what the problem is. Doctors tell me they know and they told me they could cure it but it still hurts - they use words I don't understand.
"It's a bit of a shame because I feel good with my tennis."
Elsewhere, three-time champion Nadal maintained his unbeaten streak at Roland Garros in easing past Thomaz Bellucci 7-5 6-3 6-1 and fifth seed David Ferrer claimed a straightforward 6-3 6-4 6-3 win over Belgium's Steve Darcis.
Earlier on, in windy conditions in Paris, there were straight-sets victories for 21st seed Radek Stepanek, who beat France's Gilles Simon, and 25th seed Lleyton Hewitt, who saw off another home favourite Nicolas Mahut.
Hewitt, a two-time major winner, has never gone beyond the quarter-finals at the French Open but the Australian remains a dark horse in most grand-slam events he appears in.
"I really stepped up when I needed to, especially on my return of serve," said the former world number one after his 6-4 6-2 6-4 success.
"It is good to get through in tough conditions out there."
Russian duo Mikhail Youzhny, the 15th seed, and Dmitry Tursunov (30) also had few problems as they both won in three sets against German pair Benjamin Becker and Daniel Brands respectively.
The other seeds to advance into the first round were Finland's Jarkko Nieminen (26), Russia's Igor Andreev (27) and Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic (28).
Among the unseeded players, Marat Safin, a former Australian Open winner and a semi-finalist here in 2002, recovered from losing the first set against Monaco's Jean-Rene Lisnard to prevail 6-7 (5/7) 6-1 6-3 6-2.
Safin is a crowd favourite at Roland Garros but his ranking has slipped to 73rd in the world after a couple of lean seasons.
"I'm still playing, still enjoying it, even though I'm in a tough position," said the 28-year-old Russian, who has threatened to quit tennis before.
"A couple of months ago, I was almost out of the top 100. But why retire when everything is functioning. I don't think I will be retiring any time soon."
Safin meets fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko next in a potentially mouthwatering tie.
In other second-round matches, 19th seed Nicolas Almagro, of Spain, was a 7-6 (7/2) 6-2 6-1 winner over Sebastian Decoud.
Almagro will next play Great Britain's Andy Murray, the 10th seed who was in impressive form as he swept aside a below-par Jose Acasuso 6-4 6-0 6-4.
Odesnik sealed a third-round match with Djokovic by beating Lee in four sets.
Eduardo Schwank followed up his first-round win over 16th seed Carlos Moya by beating Marcel Granollers in four sets to set up a clash with 18th seed Paul-Henri Mathieu, who came from two sets down to defeat Oscar Hernandez 2-6 1-6 6-4 6-3 6-2.
Tomas Berdych, the 11th seed, was surprised in five sets by Frenchman Michael Llodra, who will now play Simone Bolelli, a winner against Juan Martin Del Potro.