Fabio Fognini's troubles on clay continued on Monday as he was dumped out of the Open de Nice Cote d'Azur by American qualifier Donald Young.

Fognini has now lost his opening match in four of this year's clay-court tournaments and the latest came having taken the opening set.

The sixth seed started well against Young – ranked 48 places below the Italian – but he could not claim the win, falling to a 4-6 6-3 6-3 defeat.

In contrast, Joao Sousa struggled early on against wildcard Quentin Halys before battling back to record a 5-7 6-4 6-4 victory.

Taylor Fritz claimed triumph on his clay-court debut in Nice, the 18-year-old sealing a 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 win over Illya Marchenko, and a second round clash with Gilles Simon.

Elsewhere on Monday there were also first-round wins for Guido Pella, qualifier Diego Schwartzman and eighth seed Alexander Zverev - who was the beneficiary as Kyle Edmund retired after an awkward fall.