Rafael Nadal recovered from a minor blip to beat Yuichi Sugita and cruise into the second round of Wimbledon.
The 33-year-old was broken in the first game of the match but quickly put it behind him, going on to win 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 on No 1 Court.
After watching Roger Federer suffer an early setback in his first round match, it seemed unlikely the same would happen with Nadal against an opponent ranked 248th in the world.
But the Spaniard suffered a nasty fall on the very first point, slipping over and over-stretching his groin muscle in the process.
That seemed to affect the 33-year-old as Sugita won four consecutive points to secure an unlikely break and go 2-0 up.
Back came Nadal as the third seed finally found his feet to win three games in a row, and took command of the set after a series of blunders from Sugita, taking a 6-3 lead.
It was plain sailing from there as the two-time Wimbledon champion secured a double break, wrapping up the second set in just 36 minutes.
To his credit, Sugita continued to battle and showed that despite his obscure reputation, the 30-year-old can mix it with the very best in tennis.
The pair took it in turns to hold serve in the third set until Nadal finally disrupted the flow of the match after a careless error from Sugita to hand him the break.
From there, it looked inevitable that he would go onto victory and Nadal is up and running as he aims to win his first title at SW19 in nine years.
