French Open 2018 Results: Serena Williams Escapes Scare in Thursday's Play

Serena Williams had to dig deep during Thursday's 2018 French Open action, dropping the first set in a win over Ashleigh Barty.

Elsewhere, men's top seed Rafael Nadal easily brushed aside Guido Pella, Garbine Muguruza had little trouble with Fiona Ferro and Simona Halep lost just four games against Taylor Townsend. Dominic Thiem and Juan Martin del Potro also advanced.

Here are some selected results from Thursday. The full results can be found here.

Men's Singles

(1) Rafael Nadal bt. Guido Pella: 6-2, 6-1, 6-1

(3) Marin Cilic bt. (Q) Hubert Hurkacz: 6-2, 6-2, 6-7 (3), 7-5

(9) John Isner bt. Horacio Zeballos: 6-7 (8), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-2

(5) Juan Martin del Potro bt. Julien Benneteau: 6-4, 6-3, 6-2

Women's Singles

(PR) Serena Williams bt. (17) Ashleigh Barty: 3-6, 6-3, 6-4

(3) Garbine Mugurza bt. (WC) Fiona Ferro: 6-4, 6-3

(1) Simona Halep bt. (WC) Taylor Townsend: 6-3, 6-1

(7) Caroline Garcia bt. Shuai Peng: 6-4, 3-6, 6-3

Williams has looked rusty throughout the 2018 season, and things were no different on Thursday. The 36-year-old, who returned to the tour earlier this year after taking time off for the birth of her first child, struggled mightily toward the back end of the first set and the first half of the second.

Her opponent Barty is a 22-year-old rising star who took some time off from the sport herself to focus on cricket, and she flashed her quality with some sublime power tennis from the baseline.

The New York Times' Ben Rothenberg feared for Williams:

But with her back against the wall, Williams cleaned up her ground game and started taking more risks with her returns. It led to a great run in the second set and an early break in the third, which was enough to see her through to the next round.

Pella didn't make things hard on men's favourite Nadal, as the defending champion barely had to break a sweat in his Round 2 win. In just three short sets, he dealt with the Argentinian, who never even came close to threatening the Spaniard.

The New York Times' Christopher Clarey noted it was business as usual, and things don't look like they're about to get harder for Nadal:

Against Pella, he once again combined supreme defence with great accuracy on his groundstrokes. The spin he generates appears to be as good as ever, and players just can't find a way to deal with it.

Halep and Muguruza both progressed with relative ease, although the former showed a few signs of weakness against wildcard Ferro.

Fellow wildcard Townsend never even came close to challenging Halep, and as a result of those matches, the draw for the women's event is starting to come along nicely:

Zeballos gave Isner all kinds of trouble early in their contest, forcing three straight tiebreaks and winning one of them, while Del Potro continued his solid work with a routine win over Benneteau.