Photo: TM France

Nadal successfully begins bid for 8th French title -  NBC SportsPhoto: Tennis Magazine France

• Stunned at First, Nadal Rights Himself in His Paris Opening - NYTimes
• Roland Garros: Nadal d. Brands - Tennis.com
• Nadal emerges unscathed from Branding - RG
• Rafael Nadal struggles in 1st round - ESPN
• NADAL RELIEVED AFTER WINNING ROLAND GARROS OPENER - ATP
• RAFA REACTS TO BRANDS' POWER PLAY
• ROLAND GARROS DIARY: NO PRESSURE ON RAFA

“I'm delighted to be able to play here at Roland Garros,” “I find myself in a state of affairs that, only few months back, none of my team could ever have dreamed of. That's why I'm [appreciating] every moment. What's happened is behind me. Each passing day is a little less tension, and I think I have done more than I could possibly have dreamed about doing only a few months back.
“Pressure is something that you can foist upon your own shoulders. It doesn't come from anywhere else. My pressure is to play every day the best I can. That's exactly what I did and that's what I always do and that's what I will continue to do. This is a difficult tournament, among the most difficult in the world. You win, you lose, you play.”

• Nadal tested but wins - USAToday
• Nadal Overcomes Big-Serving Brands - Bloomberg
• Our sport is clean, insists Rafa Nadal - TheScore

“I find it unfair that the names of the cheats are not given, whether they’re Spanish or not,” “If you make the controls public and everybody can know how many controls that everybody has, then you are not going to have these questions because you will know how many controls we will have. That’s my feeling,” “So why we cannot make everything clean? Why we cannot make everything public? Then we don’t have to come here and ask if we are overtested or, you know, we are not tested enough.“That’s my feeling. Tennis is a very clean sport. We don’t have a lot of cases of doping. And we are having a lot of controls.”