Rafael Nadal has resisted a spirited show of aggressive groundstroke hitting by lucky loser Simone Bolelli as he launched his campaign for an 11th Roland Garros crown with a 6-4 6-3 7-6 (11-9) victory.

Resuming the match on Tuesday after a thunderstorm ended the previous night’s play early in the third set, Nadal was forced to an entertaining tiebreak to wrap up a hard-fought French Open first round encounter.

Bolelli resumed play as he had ended the night before: sending down missiles at Nadal from his baseline, seeking to prise open the Spaniard’s defences. Audacious backhand passing shots on the Nadal first serve and delightfully disguised drop shots brought frequent loud gasps from the crowd.

Nadal said he should have been more aggressive in response to the Bolelli attack.

“It was difficult today to play so aggressive, being in the first round and against a player who really came on court and decided to play that strong,” he said.

Even so, he maintained the calm of a French Open champion who entered the tournament with a 79-2 win-loss record at Roland Garros, retrieving seemingly impossible balls and letting rip with his own exquisite passing shots.

He survived four set points against him in the tiebreak, coming back from a 3-6 deficit, before finally triumphing.

Bolelli was fearless from the outset, with nothing to lose. Nadal, after all, had won his 10th French Open title in 2017 without dropping a single set and has been in imperious form, arriving in Paris with a 19-1 record on clay this year.

Even in defeat, Bolelli said he would be leaving Paris happy.

“It gives me a lot of confidence, I played a really good tennis,” the Italian said. “I think maybe I deserved the third set. But Rafa is like this, you have to go after every point, pushing and pushing.”

Elsewhere Hubert Hurkacz – who eliminated Bernard Tomic’s eventual conqueror Marco Trungelliti in qualifying – beat controversial American Tennys Sandgren in four sets.

Sixth seed Kevin Anderson made light work of Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi, winning 6-1 6-2 6-4, while Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany did things similarly easy against Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy.

French 25th seed Adrian Mannarino lost in straight sets to Steve Johnson of the US while Italy’s Fabio Fognini – seeded 18th – eased past Spain’s Pablo Andujar.