Michael Phelps qualified with the fifth fastest time in Monday's preliminaries as he opened his defense of his Olympic title in the 200m butterfly.

"I'm pretty happy with that swim," Phelps said. "That's all I needed it to be.".

He was back in the water hours after taking silver the day before in an upset in which the French team took gold in the 4x100 freestyle relay.

"Just getting last night sort of out of the way was something that I needed," Phelps said. "I guess I got to bed pretty late. We're all falling asleep pretty late. We're all excited."

 He was the slowest qualifier for the 400 individual medley final on Saturday, and his surprising fourth-place finish kept him off the medals podium.

"I have no idea what it was, but I don't think it had anything to do with confidence," he said. "I felt I was ready to swim faster than that. It just didn't happen."

He finished third in his heat at 1 minute, 55.53 seconds, trailing Dinko Jukic of Austria and U.S. teammate Tyler Clary.

Jukic had the top time of 1:54.79, while Clary was second-best at 1:54.96 in advancing to the evening semifinals.

Velimir Stjepanovic of Serbia was third at 1:54.99. Others who made the semis included Chad le Clos of South Africa (fourth), 2008 bronze medalist Takeshi Matsuda of Japan (eighth), 2008 silver medalist Laszlo Cseh of Hungary (ninth), Wu Peng of China (10th) and Nick D'Arcy of Australia (12th).

To watch the swim finals click here.