Rafael Nadal started his bid to win a ninth Monte Carlo Masters by brushing aside wild card Lucas Pouille in straight sets, while Roger Federer and defending champion Stanislas Wawrinka were also second-round winners on Wednesday.

Nadal won the clay court tournament in the the Principality eight times in a row from 2005 to 2012, but lost to Novak Djokovic in the final two years ago before David Ferrer beat him in an all-Spanish quarter-final 12 months ago.

The 28-year-old from Mallorca, a nine-time French Open champion, made light work of beating Thiem 6-2 6-1 in only 69 minutes to secure his place in the third round.

Pouille, ranked 108th in the world, was unable to force a break point in a one-sided match, with third seed Nadal breaking four times to set up a meeting with either John Isner or Viktor Troicki.

While Nadal has eight Monte Carlo Masters titles under his belt, second seed Federer has never won the tournament, but made an encouraging start against Jeremy Chardy.

The world number two eased to a 6-2 6-1 victory in under an hour by winning half of the break points he earned and being broken only once.

Federer, a runner-up on four occasions in this tournament, can now looking forward to facing either another Frenchman in the form of Gael Monfils or Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.

Wawrinka beat Federer in last year's final and was also a straight-sets winner on Wednesday, seeing off Juan Monaco 6-1 6-4.

Wawrinka was broken twice in the second set, but claimed three breaks of his own to set up a third-round clash with ninth seed Grigor Dimitrov, who beat Fabio Fognini 6-3 6-4.

Sixth seed Tomas Berdych is also through to the last 16 courtesy of a 6-4 7-6 (7-2) victory over Sergiy Stakhovsky, while Gilles Simon, Tommy Robredo and Roberto Bautista Agut also advanced on Wednesday.