Despite a few uncomfortable moments, Rafael Nadal - the man most likely to challenge Roger Federer at the Australian Open - booked himself a second round spot early on Tuesday morning.

Second seed Nadal took more than two and a half hours to jettison big-serving Serbian qualifier Viktor Troicki 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 6-1.

While Nadal won in straight sets, world No.126 Troicki stuck with the world No.2 early on, only folding when the Spaniard ramped up his game late in the second set.

Troicki had his chances, including a set point in the first set, from which Nadal fought back.

Then the Serbian grabbed an early service break in the second set.

But Nadal broke back in the eighth game and broke again to claim the set 7-5.

From then the Spaniard was in control as he grabbed an early service break in the third on his way to wrapping up the match.

Nadal admitted he had not played at his best, but remained confident he could make his way through a draw that opened up nicely for him when ninth seeded Briton Andy Murray became an opening day casualty.

Murray was expected to be Nadal's banana skin later in the tournament, but instead the Scot slipped up against Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets.

"Typical nervous for the first very important match of the season," Nadal said of his performance in a match that finished after midnight.

"I know today I maybe didn't play my best because this is typical to be nervous at the beginning.

"I think I only have to improve a little bit more. I hope to play better next round. I feel confident about this."

Nadal next plays Frenchman Florent Serra in a second round match likely to be on Wednesday.

Earlier, Andy Roddick and Nikolay Davydenko cruised into the second round as the best of the British fell by the wayside on the opening day of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park.

While Roddick and Davydenko comfortably advanced with routine straight-sets victories, Murray left British flags at half-mast once more with a deflating defeat at the hands of big-hitting Frenchman Joe-Wilfried Tsonga.

Gifted a soft draw on the opposite side to world No.1 Roger Federer, Murray was rated alongside Roddick, Davydenko and second seed Rafael Nadal as the standout contenders to reach the Open final.

Instead, the 20-year-old Scot was the first seed sent packing after crashing to a depressing 7-5 6-4 6-0 7-6 (7-5) first-round exit.

A winner in Qatar two weeks ago, the ninth-seeded Murray offered no excuses after arriving for the season's first grand slam feeling confident of making his first major quarter-final - at least - if not end Britain's 31-year grand slam drought.

"I had a lot of chances in the fourth set," he said.

"I think I played the better tennis in the fourth set and should have won it, but I made a few mistakes there I shouldn't have made."

Murray's unscheduled departure further opened up the bottom half of the draw for Roddick, Davydenko and Nadal.

The in-form Roddick, victorious for a second straight year at the Kooyong Classic on Saturday, suffered no such slip-up, dispatching Czech Lukas Dlouhy 6-3 6-4 7-5.

The three-times Open semi-finalist said he always arrived in Melbourne excited about his prospects.

"I like this event. It's kind of the few where you can map out four weeks to prepare for one tournament," Roddick said.

"Normally, you kind of prepare as you go and have to make adjustments dependent upon results, conditioning, so on and so forth.

"I kind of like that."

Davydenko, the world No.4 at the centre of a match-fixing investigation, put his off-court dramas to the side to outclass Frenchman Michael Llodra 7-5 7-5 6-3.

Fellow seeds Tommy Robredo, Ivo Karlovic, Gilles Simon, Jarkko Nieminen, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Igor Andreev also safely progressed.

But Argentina's 18th seed Juan Ignacio Chela joined Murray on the Open scrapheap, falling 6-4 6-2 1-6 6-2 to Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.

Australian wildcard Brydan Klein, the 2007 junior boys' champion, also bowed out with a 6-4 7-5 6-4 loss to Chile's Paul Capdeville.

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