The accolades continue to rain down on Rafael Nadal for his historic eighth straight Monte Carlo title.

But with the king of clay now turning his attention to lifting a seventh from eight attempts at the Barcelona Open, he’s received an unexpected morale boost from his second-seeded main rival this week, Andy Murray.

“I don’t think anyone can question the fast that Nadal is the best ever on clay,” said world number four Murray, who learned his own dirt tennis in the Catalan capital as a teenager.

“You can never say ‘never’ but his eight in a row is a record that certainly be hard to break,” said Murray, who has played Barcelona twice (2005 2006) but won just one match. He withdrew to let an elbow injury heal in 2011.

Nadal will aim to keep his focus this week after breaking a seven-match losing streak against world No.1 Novak Djokovic on SUnday.

“I’m only concentrating on playing well here, this is one of the nicest tournaments of the year for me. That is my challenge, not to become number one again, I’m home and this is very special to me. I’m so comfortable here.”

Murray said he wants to start improving his own record at the Real Club de Tenis, where he begins in the second round against Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky, who beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-2 6-3 on Monday.

“It takes me a few weeks to get adjusted to the surface,” said the 21011 French Open semi-finalist. “It feels like home to me here since I trained here a lot when I was young.”

In first-round matches, Canadian 11th seed Milos Raonic bounced back from an early Monte Carlo exit, defeating Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-4 7-6 (7-3). Colombian Santiago Giraldo levelled the national scoreline as he beat Uzbek Denis Istomin 7-6 (7-3) 6-4.

Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen, who lost a quarter-final against Nadal here six years ago, started with a defeat of Spaniard Javier Marti 6-4 6-1.

Less than 24 hours after crushing Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-1 in the Monte Carlo final, Nadal was outlining his chances in Barcelona.

“Beating the number one is special, but Novak (mourning the loss of his grandfather last week) made more errors than usual and I took advantage of that. I did have a few mistakes with my backhand though,” said Nadal.

The top seed will open on Wednesday after a first-round bye, facing the winner from compatriot Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Belgium’s Olivier Rochus.