A week after claiming his first Masters Series title with a shock win over world number one Roger Federer in the Madrid final, Argentine Nalbandian showed more composure when it mattered to brush aside Almagro.

A break in the seventh game set up the world number 18, who later underlined his determination by winning a service game to love to take the set after 41 minutes. The second set followed a similar pattern, Nalbandian again breaking his opponent to move 4-3 up and staying on top until sealing victory with a drop shot on the first match point.

Nalbandian goes on to meet another Spaniard in Carlos Moya, the 14th seed, with the winner of that match likely to face a third-round encounter with Federer. Frenchman Gilles Simon beat Italian Potito Starace 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the only other first-round match scheduled on the opening day and will next face Spain's Tommy Robredo, seeded eighth.

Russia's Mikhail Youzhny kept alive slim hopes of qualifying for the Masters Cup by downing Frenchman Arnaud Clement 6-4, 6-3. Clement fought back from a break down in the first set but showed signs of nerves throughout and eventually bowed out with a double fault on match point.

Earlier, American Mardy Fish fired 19 aces to knock out Dmitry Tursunov 7-6, 6-4, his third victory in as many encounters with the Russian. Swiss Federer, who last appeared at the Bercy hall in 2003, leads a strong field featuring 19 of the world's top 20 players, with just number five Andy Roddick missing. At stake at the last tournament of the regular season, starting on a Sunday for the first time, are the two remaining spots for the November 11-18 Masters Cup in Shanghai. Six players have already qualified for the season's finale featuring the world's top eight players, the latest being Spain's David Ferrer, who joined Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko and Roddick.

Other results: Janko Tipsarevic (Ser) bt Vince Spadea (US) 7-6(9), 7-6(2); Stanislas Wawrinka (Swi) bt Nicolas Kiefer (Ger) 7-5, 6-3; Andreas Seppi (Ita) bt Sam Querrey (US) 5-7, 6-1, 6-3; Juan Martin Del Potro (Arg) bt Feliciano Lopez (Spa) 6-4, 6-3.