MIlos Raonic largely untroubled in straight-set win over Janko Tipsarevic at the French Open

PARIS – There were multiple reasons for Milos Raonic to do his utmost to finish his French Open first-round match against Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia Monday in straight sets.

Most of all, there was the weather. Already, the 25-year old Canadian had seen a match due to take place late Sunday afternoon on Court Suzanne Lenglen – the second-largest court at Roland Garros – morph into an 11 a.m. Monday start on the much more intimate Court 2 after much of the first day of the tournament was washed out.

That 11 a.m. start turned into more like 1:30 p.m. because of persistent morning rain, so the regimented Raonic found his tried-and-true pre-match routine quite perturbed.

“It was the first time I played without warming up before, so I was quite nervous about that before stepping on court,” said Raonic, who was largely untroubled in a 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (5) victory. The players were given a 10-minute warmup on court, rather than the usual five, in recognition of the fact that the weather prevented them from getting their usual 30 minutes of court time.

Raonic was only able to practice outside for about 30 minutes on Sunday, the pre-match warmup for the match that was never played, during the few hours earlier in the day when the practice courts were uncovered.

The second reason to be efficient was that Tipsarevic, once a feisty, challenging opponent, is a shadow of his former top-10 self after being out for all but a few months over the last 2 1/2 years with injury.

So in the interest of saving energy for a lengthy run in Paris, and with more unsettled weather sure to come, the focus had to be on economy of effort.

For the most part – until he served for the match at 5-4 in the third set, Raonic did exactly that.

There were, perhaps, two or three games in the entire match where the Canadian gave away a few points with errors. Two came on Tipsarevic’s serve, the third came in that game.

Tipsarevic earned his first and only break point of the match, and converted it.

When Tipsarevic last appeared at a major, at last summer’s US Open, he was clearly not 100 percent fit. He was heavier, sluggish, taped up and overwhelmed. The 31-year-old looks back in fighting form, but his game understandably isn’t anywhere near his top level.

Here's what it looked like from courtside.

But in the third set, as Raonic ever-so-slightly took his foot off the gas pedal, Tipsarevic found some of it. He bumped the speed on his first serve up about 10 km/h, began to hit his groundstrokes more aggressively and seemed to be gaining in confidence.

But after he evened the third set at 5-5, and it went to a tiebreak two games later, Tipsarevic made enough unforced errors to let Raonic off the hook.

Raonic quickly went down 0-2 in the tiebreak as a few drops of rain began to fall again. He could easily have gone down 0-3, two mini-breaks down – except Tipsarevic missed a routine winner after stretching Raonic to the backhand side several times in the point.

Overall, the impressive thing about Raonic’s game is that he won points in a number of ways. He had 10 aces (balanced by five double faults, none at times that really hurt him). He also points with big forehands, with backhands down the line, by staying imperturbably patient in some very long rallies – and even with a few brilliant-executed drop shots. The last one, at 2-3 in the third-set tiebreak, was a flat-out winner that Tipsarevic didn’t even try to reach.

Those aren’t words that would have been typed a year ago, although Raonic said he might have happened if he were playing well and was confident.