Former world No.35 Edouard Roger-Vasselin carried momentum from a deep run in doubles at Queen’s to get his Wimbledon singles qualifying off to a winning start on Monday.
The 32-year-old posted his first singles win on grass for the season with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Colombian Eduardo Struvay once the covers finally lifted after a lengthy rain delay at Roehampton.
The Frenchman’s best results in the past two years have come in doubles in tandem with countryman Julien Benneteau.
The 2014 Roland Garros champions reached the semi-finals together at Queen’s last week and Roger-Vasselin found the match play invaluable in such a limited grass court season so far.
“Definitely helped,” he said. “I’ve been playing a week already with the beautiful courts at Queen’s so yeah, I felt very good on the grass.
“I don’t know about my opponent whether he played on the grass already or not but yeah, definitely it helped me a lot.”
World No.161 Struvay showed grass court credentials of his own, regularly serve-volleying to pick off net winners throughout but serving to stay in the first set, his French opponent scurried to what looked a certain drop-volley winner, drawing the smash error with an awkward lob.
It was enough to rattle Struvay. He went on to drop serve to love to concede the set 6-4 on his way to losing nine straight points.
Again he faltered late in the set with Roger-Vasselin breaking for 5-3 when the Colombian dumped a forehand into the net.
A missed forehand pass handed the Frenchman two match points and he took it with a backhand volley winner.
“At times I was 30-30 on his serve but I kept serving well and at the end, I tried to do a little bit more and was able to break him,” Roger-Vasselin said. “I’m glad we didn’t go to a tie-break because you never know what could happen, but I had a good win in the end.”
It books a second-round qualifying clash with German Julian Reister who posted the first win of the day in the qualifying draw, racing past Brazilian 18th seed Thiago Monteiro 6-0, 6-4.
Austrian Dennis Novak also had a routine 6-4, 6-2 result over China’s Ze Zhang.
