PARIS — It all started with what Nick Kyrgios insisted was an innocuous, if admittedly loud, directive to a ball kid to retrieve a towel between points — shouted above the din of spectators at the French Open's cozy Court 1.

Chair umpire Carlos Ramos considered Kyrgios' bark during a first-set tiebreaker Sunday too forceful and assessed a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. That led to a long-running, and occasionally curse-filled, argument from the 21-year-old Australian, who at one point said the official was “unbelievably biased.”

Much as the 17th-seeded Kyrgios made of the disagreement at the time — he could have been docked a point for his colorful language — he managed to set it aside eventually and worked his way through a 7-6 (6), 7-6 (6), 6-4 victory over 124th-ranked Marco Cecchinato of Italy with the help of 16 aces, providing a bit of a spark on an otherwise dreary, drenched Day 1 at Roland Garros.

“It didn't put me off too much,” Kyrgios said of his flap with Ramos. “With someone like me that's pretty emotional, it can frustrate me a bit, but I dealt with it pretty well.”

Of the 32 matches on the Day 1 schedule, his was one of only nine completed before showers created a rain delay of more than 21/2  hours in the afternoon.

Winners included two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who acknowledged feeling “kind of down mentally” and was one game from bowing out against 59th-ranked Danka Kovinic of Montenegro before taking the final three for a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 escape. Also advancing was No. 19 Benoit Paire of France, who needed five sets to get past 137th-ranked qualifier Radu Albot of Moldova.

Right after the ruling that bothered him, Kyrgios asked whether he was being sanctioned for raising his voice in the direction of the ball kid, explaining that “the crowd was too loud for him to hear me.”

Ramos nodded.

“Really?” Kyrgios asked.

“It's not that you said, ‘Towel!' too loud,” Ramos said. “It's the way you said it.”