Today marked former world No.1 Murray’s first appearance on the Parisian clay since his first round defeat in 2020 and only the second since his heartbreaking semi-final loss in 2017 – both defeats of which came at the hands of 2015 Roland Garros champion Wawrinka.

Despite the pair having done battle an astounding 23 times in their careers, they exchanged heartfelt words at the net, with Wawrinka admitting, “My first word to him was respect. There is a lot of respect for a great champion.

“I really liked watching Andy play some of the greatest players in the world. We are not young anymore and we are trying to make the best of what is left.”

39-year-old Wawrinka came out firing as he broke Murray on the first service game with his venomous groundstrokes. Despite the Brit catching a glimpse of two break points to fight his way back into the opening set, his Swiss opponent batted them to the side as he wrapped up a comprehensive opening set.

From then on out, the momentum rested firmly with Wawrinka who proved too hard to break down on this occasion, as the world No.97 closed in on just his third victory of the year in two hours and 19 minutes.

In suffering a first round exit Murray misses out on a potential all-British second round clash against Cam Norrie. Should the British No.1 win his first match on Monday, he will go on to face three-time Grand Slam champion Wawrinka in the next round.

Murray's loss in the singles does not mark the end of his stay in Paris, with the British No.4 set to open up his doubles campaign alongside Dan Evans on Tuesday 28 May against fellow singles stars Tiago Seyboth Wild and Sebastian Baez.

Earlier today, 22-year-old Jack Draper lost his opening round match against qualifier and world No.176 Jesper De Jong 7-5, 6-4, 6-7(3), 3-6, 6-3 in four hours and 12 minutes.

Draper showed great resilience to come back from two sets and a break down to force the Dutch star to a deciding set.

The British No.2 once again overturned a break deficit in the fifth set, but a critical ninth double fault from Draper at 4-3 gave De Jong the chance to serve out the biggest win of his career on Court 12 at Roland Garros.

Monday’s action will see British No.1 Norrie open his Roland Garros campaign against Pavel Kotov, not before 11:15 BST. Meanwhile Harriet Dart will be looking to reach the second round in Paris for the first time in her career when she takes on rising star Linda Noskova.