It wasn’t easy, but Milos Raonic made a winning return to the ATP World Tour on Monday with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 win over Britain’s James Ward. As was to be expected, Raonic was dominant on serve. He dropped twenty-four aces on his British opponent, while landing sixty-two percent of his first serves, winning eighty-two percent of those points. He broke Ward’s serve three times, while saving four break points on his own serve. Ward’s lone service break came late in the first set. Raonic broke once in the second set and twice in the third to seal the victory.

The Canadian found himself under pressure early and was largely outplayed in the first set. All of Ward’s break point opportunities came in the first set, which included his late break to claim the set 7-5. But Ward would not get a look at Raonic’s serve again, which seemed to pick up steam as the match progressed. Raonic struggled on his return in the first set, getting very few opportunities on Ward’s serve in the opening set. But as he regained his footing on the grass, he started to make inroads, eventually breaking three times out of six opportunities.

The match was Raonic’s first competitive match since losing to Andy Murray in the quarterfinals of Madrid way back in early May. A pinched nerve in his foot which required surgery to fix forced Raonic to miss the Masters 1000 event in Rome and Roland Garros. Because of the missed time, Raonic’s ranking fell from his career-high of number four, achieved because of his injury-hampered run in Madrid, to number eight. Raonic showed some signs of rust in the early goings, but as the match progressed, he quickly re-found some semblance of the form that got him to the number four ranking and the Wimbledon semifinals a year ago. Raonic is hoping to get as much action on the grass as possible before attempting to defend his 720 points from Wimbledon.

His opening round win over Ward was encouraging for two reasons. Firstly, he’s not completely rusty. He managed to dig deep and win the match after losing a competitive first set. It would have been quite discouraging had he lost, but the win will give him confidence and more chances to play and better prepare for Wimbledon. The more time he has on court, the more chances he will have to find his highest level. The second reason is that, no matter what happens in the latest round, he will enter Wimbledon having played more matches than he did a year ago. Last year, he lost his opening match in Halle and didn’t play again on grass until Wimbledon. He reached the semi-finals there. With the win over Ward, he’ll at least have two matches under his belt to prepare for the All-England Club which is very encouraging.

In the second round, he’ll face Richard Gasquet. Raonic leads their head-to-head 2-1 and won their last match. Gasquet’s lone win over Raonic came at the US Open back in 2013. Since then, Gasquet had fallen out of the top twenty (he’s back to nineteenth), while Raonic has become entrenched in the top ten. While Gasquet is solid on grass, Raonic is even stronger and his game fits the surface better. Gasquet beat Raonic at the US Open by outworking him in the rallies. Not only have Raonic’s groundstrokes improved immensely since that meeting, but on the grass, it will be a lot harder for Gasquet to extend rallies and out-hit Raonic. He’ll likely spend more time retrieving Raonic’s giant strokes. The grass definitely gives Raonic the advantage. Gasquet is in good form at the moment, so he may take a set. But Raonic should reach the quarterfinals.