Nadal too good

It was by no means an easy ride for the world number two as he made his season debut on clay following his recovery from a foot injury which had delayed preparations for the upcoming French Open.

There was a hint of revenge to the result, after Clement - a local favourite in Monaco - had disposed of Nadal in the semi-finals of the Marseille Open two months ago.

But there was to be no repeat of that upset, although the Frenchman took an early break in the second set to set Nadal's nerves jangling.

Nadal recovered and took and first set 6-4, but once again found himself in bother when he required strapping on his right ankle after three games in the second set.

But the 19-year-old proved too strong in the end, and he broke Clement in the ninth game to serve for the match. He took the second of two match points to grab victory after 95 minutes.

"He is a good player," said Nadal of Clement. "He beat me in Marseille. I hadn't played on clay for a long time and it's difficult to adapt but the result is okay.

"The injury is no longer a problem."

Nadal goes through to the second round, where he will face Jean-René Lisnard, who beat Andrew Murray 4-6 7-6 (5) 7-5.

The British hopeful slipped to defeat in a three set thriller against on the Court des Princes, but only after he fell victim to yet another injury.

Murray started slowly against his inexperienced opponent and dropped the first set 4-6, but recovered well to take a hard fought second set on a tiebreak 7-6 (5).

But then the Scotsman's trademark injury problems hit, and his game took a dive. Breaking point for Murray came at 5-5 in the final set as the pain became too much, leading to an easy break of serve for Lisnard.

Murray's trainer raced on to try and remedy the situation at the changeover, but it was too late, as Murray was effectively forced to stop playing in the final game, allowing Lasnard to pick up his first ever Tour win.

Chile's Fernando Gonzalez took three sets to put out Spain's Carlos Moya, cruising in the final set to take the match 6-3 3-6 6-1.

The south American's powerful forehand proved to be the difference between the two players, as Moya struggled to cope with the sheer power of the number 12 seed.

Gonzalez will now meet another Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez who earlier beat Victor Hanescu in three sets to book his place in the second round.

Ivan Ljubicic overcame Igor Andreev 6-3 6-4 6-2 to book a place in the next round, whilst Florent Serra beat Paradorn Srichaphan 6-1 7-5 in the late starting match on the Court des Princes.

13th seed Sebastien Grosjean was the sixth Frenchman to qualify for the second round with a 7-6 (8-3) 6-3 victory over Fernando Verdasco of Spain.

Another Frenchman, Gilles Simon booked his place in the second round of the tournament with a 6-4 6-2 win over Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia, whilst Benjamin Balleret sailed to a 6-3 6-3 victory of Christophe Rochus of Belgium.

Eighth seed David Ferrer of Spain triumphed over Nicolas Massu 6-0 4-6 6-2, after the Chilean could not recover from an awful start, losing the first set without winning a single game.

Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty will meet Ferrer in the next round after a 6-4 3-6 6-4 victory over Daniele Bracciali of Italy.

Monte Carlo draw