Nalbandian rallies to reach second round

MONTE CARLO, Apr 16 (Reuters) David Nalbandian survived an early scare to move into the Monte Carlo Masters second round with a 3-6 6-2 6-1 victory over Italian qualifier Federico Luzzi today.

The Argentine ninth seed, a French Open semi-finalist last year, was troubled by his opponent in the early games before waking up and clinching the win in one hour and 44 minutes.

Nalbandian now meets either Romania's Andrei Pavel or German Philipp Kohlschreiber for a third round spot.

''Earlier this month I was playing the Davis Cup quarter-finals against Sweden on a very, very fast court so the start of the match was hard,'' Nalbandian said in a courtside interview.

''I had to adapt to clay, which explains my slow start.'' Max Mirnyi of Belarus made light work of Cypriot 14th seed Marcos Baghdatis, winning 7-5 6-4 to book his place in the second round.

Big serving Mirnyi wrapped up the win in one hour and 38 minutes on his first match point and will meet either Austrian Juergen Melzer or Argentine qualifier Sergio Roitman.

Belgian Kristof Vliegen set up a second round clash with former world number one Marat Safin when he beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-5 6-3.

The Frenchman was suffering from gastro-enteritis.

His compatriot Marc Gicquel, who was 5-2 down in the decider, won five games in a row to get past German Florian Mayer 7-5 5-7 7-5.

Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Czech Radek Stepanek both benefitted from the retirements of their opponents, Spain's Carlos Moya and Frenchman Gael Monfils respectively.

Stepanek will take on Croatian seventh seed Ivan Ljubicic in the next round while Youzhny meets South Korea's Lee Hyung-taik.

Former French Open champion Moya was 6-2 3-1 down when he pulled out with thigh pains.

Monfils, who has not won a match since beating Baghdatis in the Australian Open second round, was booed off the court by the crowd when he quit trailing 6-0 2-0.

Swede Robin Soederling set up a clash with world number four Nikolay Davydenko by beating Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-4 6-4.

REUTERS SAM PM2228