Former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero survived match point to claim a hard-fought win over sixth seed Robin Haase at the Open de Nice Cote d'Azur on Tuesday.
Ferrero eventually claimed a nail-biting 4-6 7-6 (8/6) 7-6 (8/6) victory to progress to round two.
The Spaniard saved the match point during the second-set tie-break. He then blew a break-of-serve lead in the decider before sealing victory after more than two and a half hours in another breaker.
The wild-card entrant will next face Brazil's Thomaz Bellucci.
Earlier in the day, fifth seed Bernard Tomic cruised past Lukas Lacko and into the second round.
After Monday's wash out in southern France, Tomic wasted little time when he got onto court, needing just 65 minutes to post a 6-2 6-3 win.
The 19-year-old, currently at a career-high ranking of 28, will now meet Mikhail Kukushkin. The Kazakh saw off Sam Querrey 6-2 7-5.
Fabio Fognini was the first seed to fall.
The eighth-seeded Italian went down 7-6 (7/3) 7-5 to Belgium's Steve Darcis.
Seventh seed Denis Istomin avoided such trouble, surviving a second-set blip to beat Alejandro Falla 7-6 (7/3) 1-6 6-1 in two hours and 24 minutes. He next will face former world number three Nikolay Davydenko, who defeated Australian Matthew Ebden 6-3 6-3.
Top seed John Isner will play Xavier Malisse in his opening match - Malisse completed a 7-5 6-4 win over Yen-Hsun Lu in a match which had begun on Sundau. Meanwhile, Grigor Dimitrov beat Dudi Sela to set up a clash with second seed Gilles Simon.
There were also wins for American qualifier Brian Baker, Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Filippo Volandri.
