Ferrero arrived at the season-ending event trailing Andy Roddick by just 26 points in the race to finish the season with the coveted number one ranking.

But with 20 points on offer for each round-robin match the French Open champion was unable to make up any ground on his American rival.

"It is one of my goals to finish number one," declared Ferrero. "Right now I want to be number one, I want to finish number one.

"It will be very difficult but I will try."

While it was a disappointing opening effort, the 23 year-old was not discouraged having also dropped the opening match in his two previous visits to the Masters before reaching the semifinals in 2001 and advancing all the way to last year's final.

BRIGHT START

Under a cloudy Texas sky, Ferrero started smartly but after Nalbandian broke him at the first opportunity to go up 4-2, the Spaniard could not recover.

The muscular Argentine then immediately flexed his authority sweeping through six of the next seven games to take the set and a commanding 4-0 lead in the second on his way to closing out the match in a blistering 67 minutes.

"It was just one of those days," said Ferrero, who struck just six winners in the entire match. "I didn't feel very good at the start, no winners, I didn't serve very well...nothing good.

"It was my first match of the whole season that I play like this. But it has been a very long year.

"The last two times I played in the Masters I lost my first match but never this bad. But I will fight in the next game."

Still searching for his first win of the season, Nalbandian showed no lingering affects from a wrist injury he sustained at the U.S. Open and aggravated last month in Basel forcing him to withdraw from the final.

Following his semifinal loss to Roddick at Flushing Meadows, Nalbandian took several weeks off to recover from the wrist injury and appeared the fresher of the two players.

"I didn't play for some time, I am fresh and my mind is perfect," said Nalbandian."I feel good, I didn't feel anything strange so I am very happy with the way I played.

"I don't feel 100 percent with the wrist so I had to be careful. But I focused 100 percent and my tactics were perfect.

Blue Group play continues later Monday with Australian Open champion Andre Agassi opening his account against Swiss Wimbledon champion Roger Federer.