PARIS — A brutally hot first couple of days at the French Open reached their natural conclusion Monday, with Casper Ruud and Roman Safiullin competing in a contest that was more battle of attrition than tennis match.Ruud, the No. 15 seed and a two-time former finalist at Roland Garros, won the painful and sometimes surreal first-round encounter 6-2, 7-6(5), 5-7, 0-6, 6-2. But that barely begins to tell the story of a match where both players ended up badly physically compromised.The dramatic conclusion felt a long way off when Ruud went up two sets to love. Though perhaps foreshadowing what was to come, he left the court at the end of a grueling 75-minute second set. Ruud then had match points up 5-2, and three in a row at 40-0 when he served for the match at 5-3, but he deteriorated physically from there and lost 10 straight games.He received medical attention for illness, surely exacerbated by the heat, after the first and third games of the fourth set. The color had drained from his face, and his energy was visibly fading with the temperature still around 82 degrees as the clock ticked toward 8 p.m. It looked at that point as if Ruud would have no choice but to retire, a moment that must have brought back painful memories of the 2024 French Open, when, weakened by a stomach parasite, he stumbled to a semifinal defeat against Alexander Zverev. Or of last year, when he injured his knee during a second-round loss to Nuno Borges.Then came the turn of events that best summed up the bizarre match, as Safiullin, the world No. 141 from Russia, took a medical timeout for a hip injury while leading 5-0 in the fourth set. While Safiullin lay on a mat to receive treatment, Ruud covered his face with an ice towel in a desperate effort to revive himself.Casper Ruud poured water on his head and wrapped his neck in an ice-filled towel to combat the heat Monday at Roland Garros. (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)Safiullin picked himself up to polish off a bagel set and force a decider, but he had clearly lost a step, making for a last game of the fourth set that looked more appropriate for a local park than one of the four most prestigious venues in world tennis. Both players left the court ahead of the fifth set, which began more than 16 minutes later.By then, the question was whether the ill player could beat the injured one?It turned out that whatever Ruud did to revitalize himself worked, as the power gradually returned to his serve and groundstrokes, while Safiullin gradually succumbed to the punishing conditions. On a day when a ball kid fainted on court and various players wilted in the heat.For Ruud, a third French Open final remains a possibility. He reached the Italian Open final earlier this month, where he was beaten by Jannik Sinner, and the semis of the Geneva Open last week.Ruud is seeded to face Novak Djokovic in the round of 16 and will face another Serbian, world No. 58 Hamad Medjedovic, in Wednesday’s second round.