Greg Rusedski made an early exit from the Monte Carlo Masters at the hands of world number one Roger Federer. The British number two gave himself early hope by breaking the Swiss star to lead 3-1 in the first set.
But Federer kept his customary cool to break back two games later as errors began to creep into Rusedski's game.
Rusedski, whose last ATP match win on clay came back in 2001, eventually went down 6-3 6-1 as Federer's domination increased in the latter stages.
He found himself regularly wrong-footed by the Swiss and when he hit an easy-looking overhead into the net in the second set, his confidence visibly crumbled.
 |  Anybody that's playing Roger right now is going to have a very hard time |
Federer had few problems in winning his service games and used the latter stages to hone his clay-court skills against a disheartened Rusedski.
"It's never nice to go behind early in your first match on clay," said Federer afterwards. "But I felt the conditions didn't favour him today.
"It was very slow and that meant he didn't get many free points on his serve, even though it's still up there at 120mph."
Rusedski admitted: "Anybody that's playing Roger right now is going to have a very hard time."
The Briton's loss completed a miserable day for British tennis, with number one Tim Henman also losing in the first round to Mariano Zabaleta.
MMIX
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