Seeds win as Murray beats Monfils in Hamburg

BERLIN, May 16 (Reuters) Four seeds won their opening matches at the Hamburg Masters today while British hope Andy Murray triumphed over in-form Frenchman Gael Monfils.

Fourth-seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko beat Chilean Nicolas Massu 6-3 6-4 while former French Open champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, the number six seed, battled to a 6-2 3-6 6-4 victory against Spaniard Alberto Martin in first round action.

Seventh seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile beat Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 6-4 6-3 and ninth seed Nicolas Kiefer delighted the home crowd with a 6-2 3-6 6-3 win over Austria's Juergen Melzer.

In a battle of the teenagers, Murray won 6-4 6-1 against Monfils who came into their first meeting after losing in last week's Rome Masters semi-finals to eventual champion Rafael Nadal.

Scotland's Murray, who is ranked 46th in the world, next plays American fifth seed James Blake, who beat former French Open champion Carlos Moya yesterday.

Murray has not progressed beyond the second round in any of his last six tournaments but said he had played one of his best matches on the clay of Am Rothenbaum.

TOUGH CONDITIONS ''If I win against a guy who is making the semis of a Masters Series, and beating him 6-4 6-1, there is obviously not that much that I can do better,'' said Murray, who celebrated his 19th birthday yesterday.

''But today it was tough. It was very windy. When the sun came out, the shadow was covering half of the court which made it very tough to return from one of the sides.

''He was obviously very confident after making the semis last week. But I played the right way.'' Nadal and last year's winner Roger Federer have pulled out of the tournament, citing fatigue after their five-set Rome final on Sunday lasted more than five hours.

''It was a very tough decision but I had to fight hard from the quarter-finals on in Rome and I really am very tired,'' world number one Federer told the centre court crowd.

''I could have risked injuring myself, so with a heavy heart I decided against playing.'' The tournament now has its weakest line up in years with only five of the world's top 10 involved.

Argentina's David Nalbandian, Andy Roddick of the US and Australia's Lleyton Hewitt had already withdrawn.

Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic, number five in the world, is now the highest-ranked player in the event.

REUTERS SY PM0002