"I'm not really pay attention to what the people saying. The most important thing is I play my game day by day, match by match. How far I can get, God knows."

Dressed to kill, Nadal emerged onto Centre Court wearing a bright pink shirt with yellow bandana. But the Spaniard, having won four French Open titles in a row, took time to get going his pursuit for a historic fifth as he survived a tiebreaker in the first set before resurging from 3-1 down in the second.

Daniel, 30, can look back with much pride on a match in which he broke Nadal's serve three times.

The player ranked 97 enjoyed his time on the big stage, pushing his prestigious opponent onto the back foot on a number of occasions.

"Roland Garros always is difficult. When I start, normally I didn't start to play my best here the last four years," Nadal said, "but the important thing is being with positive mentality and trying to win. I won in three sets. That's important."

In other men's action, Davydenko outplayed Stefan Koubek in straight sets 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 and Andy Roddick played the best he has on clay for several seasons, also breezing past French wildcard Romain Jouan 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.

Asia had a successful day at the expense of French hopes.

No. 15 seed Zheng Jie of China thumped Stephanie Cohen-Aloro 6-1, 6-3 and Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn advanced with a 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 win over Camille Pin.

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