With the first round stretched across three days we had neither defending champion feature today, instead it was the return of Federer to Paris which headlined.
Roger had the perfect opening test in his straight sets victory over Lorenzo Sonego, the Swiss looking comfortable on the clay in what is likely to be his last appearance here.
While the likes of Tsitsipas, Cilic and Nishikori all breezed through, there were titanic battles for evergreen Nicolas Mahut (dumping out 16th seed Cecchinato from two days down in the match of the day) and the struggling Dimitrov finally overcoming the returning Tipsarevic, also in five.
The women’s side bought the biggest shock of the day, Angelique Kerber looked uncertain and uncomfortable in a limp 4-6, 2-6 loss to Potapova.
Venus Williams succombed to the power and speed of Svitolina, 14 years her junior but former champ Muguruza overcame Taylor Townsend.
Elsewhere, last year’s finalist Sloane Stephens, second seed Pliskova, Mladenovic and Bencic all won easily. Svetlana Kuznetsova is out unfortunately.
Best matches on Day 2
Serena Vs Diatchenko
Cirstea Vs Kvitova
M Zverev Vs Gasquet
Chardy Vs Edmund
Herbert Vs Medvedev
All Things Tennis 