Injury forces Gulbis out

Ernests Gulbis was the highest-profile casualty on day one of the French Open after he was forced to retire against home favourite Julien Benneteau.

Latvian Gulbis had been tipped as a dark horse for the title at Roland Garros after beating Roger Federer at the Rome Masters earlier this month. But the 23rd seed was unable to recover from a thigh injury which required a trip to hospital.

He retired at 6-4 6-2 1-0 down in his first-round match on Suzanne Lenglen Court having been outplayed by his French opponent before injuring himself inadvertently performing the splits early in the second set.

The 21-year-old said: "I stretched my leg, my hamstrings, and I heard two cracks. I hope it's nothing serious, because it can be anything, but it's a little stretch of the muscle."

Benneteau will now play Sergiy Stakhovsky or Leonardo Mayer.

Gulbis was the only male seed to fall on the opening day, although a partisan Philippe Chatrier Court was put through the wringer by French hero Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who came close to crashing out in a five-set epic.

The number eight seed, who will now play Josselin Ouanna, was a break down in the decider against Daniel Brands but fought back to win 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-7 (2/7) 7-5.

Robin Soderling raced through his opening match, dropping just five games to crush French wildcard Laurent Recouderc 6-0 6-2 6-3 in one hour and 33 minutes and the Swede will play Nicolas Lapentti or Taylor Dent in round two.

There were no further shocks in the men's draw, with four more seeds, Marin Cilic, Mikhail Youzhny, Albert Montanes and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, safely through.

Nicolas Massu and Janko Tipsarevic were among the unseeded casualties, losing to Fabio Fognini and Alejandro Falla, respectively.