All hopes pinned on Heather Watson as two more British players suffer first-round defeats at French Open

And then there was only one. Heather Watson will go out against Fiona Ferro on Tuesday as the last hope of a dispirited British contingent, aiming at least to add a single lonely ‘W’ to the results column for this dismal first round.

Two more male contenders bit the red dust on Monday: first Liam Broady, who fought hard but was eventually outclassed by the more experienced Jiri Vesely, and then Cameron Norrie, who allowed a commanding lead to slip away against a little-known Colombian named Daniel Elahi Galan.

A few wags have suggested that this unseasonal tournament, played in a twilight zone of frosty winds and low cloud, should have helped those who grew up on a rainy island (something that is also true of New Zealand-bred Norrie).

But the common issue for everyone this week has been the lifeless conditions. Red clay drains pace from the game at the best of times, and when you add in temperatures that hover around the low teens, it becomes fiendishly difficult to hit winners – especially for those who are used to the slicker and faster indoor surfaces that predominate through the United Kingdom.

Ironically, the one British player who might have benefited from the conditions is Kyle Edmund, whose bone-crunching forehand carries enough pace to smash through double-glazing. But Edmund withdrew with a sore knee a couple of days before the start.

Norrie is exactly the sort of player who needs help from the surface. He has a whipped, spinny, lefty forehand and a contrastingly flat backhand, but neither shot really flies through the court. Against the rangy and powerful Galan – a lucky loser from qualifying – he faded badly towards the end of his 4-6, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 defeat. “I'm pretty gone, pretty disappointed right now,” was about all that Norrie could muster during a downbeat video conference.

One oddity of Norrie's exit was that it came at around 10.45pm, under the lights which the French Open has introduced for the first time this year. Indeed, the rain that delayed the start of play by 90 minutes meant that tennis continued until 12.10am on Court Seven, where Clara Burel set a new record for the latest finish at Roland Garros when she defeated Arantxa Rus in three sets.

Wimbledon is now the only major where play has never extended into the small hours, thanks to the 11pm curfew negotiated by Merton Council. Yet such late hours will not be kept here once the tournament returns to its normal position in late May and early June; it is only an autumn exemption negotiated for this one other-worldly event. The well-heeled residents of nearby Boulogne-Billancourt will be relieved. It is one thing when Roland Garros is hosting a tiny number of spectators, but quite another when thousands are streaming out of the stadium courts at a late hour, leaving the French equivalent of doner-kebab wrappers in your front garden.

Earlier, Broady had been rueful over his four-set defeat at the hands of Vesely, a near-contemporary whom he had formerly come up against when they were both ranked among the best juniors in the world.

Vesely – a 6ft 6in Czech with a booming lefty serve – has done a better job of converting that potential into performance on the senior tour, reaching a high point of No 35 in the rankings and producing some particularly good wins at Wimbledon.

Unfortunately, Broady has never quite made the step up. There were all sorts of issues that held him back, one being a rift with his father over the funding he took from the Lawn Tennis Association. But his performances over the past week – which saw him come through qualifying with three straight-sets victories – suggest that he might be a late bloomer, finally discovering his game at the age of 26.

For this trip, Broady has reunited with his old coach and mentor Dave Sammel, whom he has known since he first turned up at Cheadle’s Matchpoint centre as a racket-wielding toddler. “Dave wants me to play in a way that's exciting, which not a lot of coaches want,” said Broady after a hard-fought 6-2, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 defeat. “He sees my game competing at the upper levels, and it’s fantastic to have someone with that belief in you. At this tournament, it was nice to justify some of the things he's been saying to me over the last three or four years.”