Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal, the defending champions in both the men's and women's singles side of the 2013 French Open are moving onward to the second round in defense of their titles after the second day of competition concluded Monday.
Sharapova, who won last year's tournament, beat Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei 6-2, 6-1 in the first round on Monday in less than an hour to seal her date with the second round. The win continued the Grand Slam champion's streak of dominance in the first round of big tourneys. As ESPN.com notes, Sharapova has won 37 of her last 38 first-round matches in major tournament action.
During their battle on Monday, Sharapova hit 25 winners, topping Hsieh's eight winners in contrast. She was also dominant thanks to very few unforced errors, making just four compared to the 24 errors committed by Hsieh.
Her win means that Sharapova, the second seed of the women's tournament in Paris, will face Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in the second round.
Meanwhile, Nadal, a three-time defending French Open champion, can continue his quest for his eighth career French Open title after dispatching Daniel Brands of Germany in a testing match-up.
Ranked No.59 in the world, Brands gave Nadal everything he could handle, and even won the first set while being down 0-3 in the second set tie-breaker. However, Nadal rallied back and ended up winning 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 6-3. It wouldn't have been the first time that nadal had been victimized by an upset at a Grand Slam tournament. Last year at Wimbledon, Nadal fell to Lukas Rosol, ranked 100th overall in the world, in one of the biggest upsets of the year.
However, that would not be Nadal's fate on Monday as he took the second set and willed his way to victory the rest of the match.
"He was trying to hit every ball as hard as he can," Nadal said. "He made me suffer, I can tell you."
In other action, Gael Monfils of France stunned No.5-seeded Tomas Berdych 7-6 (8), 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4), 7-5, while Nick Kyrgios had a strong debut in Grand Slam competition by besting Radek Stepanek, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 7-6 (11).
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