PARIS - Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's French Open hopes vanished into thin air on Wednesday when he was sent packing in the first round with a 7-5 6-4 6-7(6) 6-4 defeat against Argenitine Renzo Olivo.
The French 12th seed, who had just won the Lyon Open on clay, bowed out after saving three match points in the only game played on Wednesday after the match was interrupted by dusk on Tuesday.
"We were back to the hotel around 1 a.m., I had a massage, it was not easy to sleep. I knew the first point today was important," world number 91 Olivo, who trained in France from 2012-2016, said courtside in French.
Olivo served for the match on Wednesday but a burly Tsonga had broken back to keep his hopes alive.
"I just tried to play every point as it was the last," said Olivo, who handed Tsonga his second first-round defeat at Roland Garros.
No French man has won the French Open since 1983, let alone a grand slam title.
Meanwhile, young Austrian hope Dominic Thiem came through a testing workout against Simone Bolelli at Roland Garros on Wednesday, dropping the first three games before overcoming the Italian qualifier 7-5 6-1 6-3.
Facing a player competing in his first tour-level event since undergoing knee surgery last June and languishing at 470 in the rankings, the sixth seed came off second-best in the early baseline exchanges.
Taking the ball early, Bolelli hurried Thiem into mistiming his trademark booming groundstrokes as the Austrian - an outside bet for title and the only player to have beaten Rafa Nadal on clay this year - sent a succession of crosscourt backhands wide.
The Italian saved three break points in the ninth game before surrendering his serve two games later. That left Thiem, who recorded his best grand slam showing in reaching last year's semi-final, to serve out the first set.
"The first set was very close, and it was one key of the match today that I won it," the 23-year-old Austrian said courtside.
The Italian faded in the second set, when he had a medical timeout for work on muscles around his rebuilt knee, and Thiem finished off the match in just under two and a half hours with an ace to progress to the third round. (Reporting by John Stonestreet; Editing by Hugh Lawson)