ATP: Safin wins opener as rain hampers French Open

Paris, France (Sports Network) - Marat Safin was a first round winner on Sunday at the French Open, as only three matches were completed due to heavy rain at the second grand slam tennis tournament of the year.
Play was halted for over six hours as heavy rains caused nine men's matches to be postponed until Monday. However, more rain is in the forecast and could delay the start of action tomorrow.
Safin, the 22nd seed, easily defeated Fernando Vicente, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 to advance to the second round.
"It's tough to play with this weather because it's raining, it's not raining, it's windy, and then it's very rough conditions because everything depends on the weather," Safin said. "Playing, you're playing, but also in the back of your mind, it's still the thing that now we're gonna stop, now we're gonna stop, and you need to wait for maybe for many hours and maybe even until tomorrow. You don't want to do that. So I was lucky to finish it straight away."
In the only other matches that were completed Sunday, Italian Potito Starace outlasted Czech Ivo Minar, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), while Serbian Janko Tipsarevic defeated fellow countryman Dusan Vemic, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.