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PARIS. — Defending champion Rafael Nadal stayed on course for a 10th French Open tennis title with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 breeze past compatriot Nicolas Almagro yesterday.

But teenager Thanasi Kokkinakis gave a glimpse of the potential future of the sport when he saved three match points to beat fellow Australian Bernard Tomic 3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 8-6 to make the third round of a major for the first time.

Sixth seed Nadal will face either Austria’s Jurgen Melzer or Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia for a place in the last 16.

“I am very happy. I played a great match and was very solid,” said nine-time champion Nadal who has now defeated Almagro 13 times out of 14.

Nadal edged ahead with what proved to be the crucial break for a 2-1 lead in the first set.

The 28-year-old was ahead again in the first game of the second while Almagro had to wait until the third game for his first break opportunity which was quickly snuffed out.

Former top-tenner Almagro, a three-time quarter-finalist in Paris, has seen his ranking slip to 154 after missing the second half of the 2014 season to undergo foot surgery.

Yesterday, he gradually wilted and despite breaking back for 3-5, Nadal retrieved it immediately for a two-sets advantage.

From then, it was over as a contest as Nadal, with breaks in the second and fourth games, raced to his 68th career win at the tournament.

Out on Court Seven, 19-year-old Kokkinakis, making his Roland Garros debut on a wildcard, came back from 2-5 down in the decider and saved three match points to defeat 27th seed Tomic.

Kokkinakis fired 19 aces and 71 winners to line up a likely third round clash with world number one Novak Djokovic.

Serena Williams and Petra Kvitova also survived big scares at the French Open yesterday, both needing to come back from a set down to reach the third round.

Williams, 19 times a Grand Slam winner, survived an almighty fright before finally seeing off the challenge of world number 105 Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany.

The 33-year-old, top-seeded American dropped the first set and faced break points against her unheralded 21-year-old opponent in the second, but she rallied just in time to go through 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.

She will next face either two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka of Belarus or Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic for a place in the last 16.

The Belrusian is back in business after losing much of last year to a bout of depression and injuries.

“I lost last year at the same stage (second round) and didn’t want to do that again. It wasn’t great but I won. I was battling with myself, but it was better in the last set,” Williams said.

In cold, blustery conditions, fourth seed Kvitova made it through to the last 32 with a 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-2 win over Spain’s Silvia Soler-Espinosa.

But it was another nervy showing from the Wimbledon champion who was taken to the limit in her opening match against New Zealander Marina Erakovic.

The Czech Fed Cup winner, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros in 2012, dropped serve twice in the opening set before the more consistent Soler-Espinosa took the tie-break 7/4.

Kvitova was hanging on early in the second set, but finally started to find her range with her groundstrokes and broke to take a 4-3 lead.

That was short-lived, however, as Soler-Espinosa battled back onto level terms in the next game, but Kvitova took the next two to level the set scores.

The fourth seed took command early on in the deciding set and back-to-back breaks saw her safely past the post and into the third round.

“It was a tough match again. Second round of a Grand Slam is always difficult,” she said.

Kvitova will go up against Irina-Camelia Begu for a place in the last 16, the Romanian 30th seed defeating Ana Konjuh of Croatia.

At one stage on the tournament’s fifth day it looked like five out of the top 10 seeds could have departed the stage by the end of the day, third seed Simona Halep and sixth seed Eugenie Bouchard already having lost. — AFP.