Rome - Injured Argentine David Nalbandian lost his opening match at the Estoril Open Monday after trying for more than a week to overcome a hip injury in time for the run-up to the French Open.

The two-time champion at the Estadio Nacional and the fifth seed was beaten handily 6-2, 6-2 by Chile's Paul Capdeville, with the seed losing serve five times in well under an hour.

Nalbandian missed the Rome Masters last week, electing to stay in Barcelona for treatment on a hip injury which bothered him all the way to a pre-match quarter-final defaults 10 days ago against eventual champion Rafael Nadal.

With his loss in Portugal, the immediate future for the 27-year-old remains cloudy. But the South American said: "I will do my best to try and play in Paris (starting in three weeks)."

At the time he hurt his hip, speculation in South America was growing that surgery might be required. While ruling nothing out, the two-time Roland Garros semi-finalist is not looking that far ahead.

Instead, he's more concerned about doing poorly in his comeback try.

"My preparation coming to Estoril was as good as possible but limited due to my ongoing injury," he said. "I did everything I could to recover on time to play this tournament.

"I believe I arrived in the best shape possible given the circumstances."

Nalbandian, now 10-2 at the event, lifted the title in 2002 and 2006, losing his only other match on the Portuguese clay in the 2000 first round.

"I like this tournament and it is unfortunate I couldn't show my best tennis," he said. "Today I just couldn't move well and never found my rhythm.

"The injury still bothers me. I have to keep working on getting better."

Top seed Gilles Simon opened with a victory to lift his sorry clay record to 2-2 this spring. The wild card defeated American Robert Kendrick 6-3, 7-6 (9-7).

But Mardy Fish pulled one back for the US as the sixth seed stopped Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-3, 6-4.

In other results, France's Marc Gicquel beat Pablo Andujar of Spain 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 while Spaniard Oscar Hernandez spoiled the week for local Rui Machado 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.

On the women's WTA side, top seed Iveta Benesova started her title campaign as she put out wild card Nueza Silva of Portugal 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. German eighth seed Anna-Lena Groenefeld won her second main draw match at the event, beating France's Pauline Parmentier 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).